Annie Hughes’ opinion piece on the upcoming tuition increases shows an astounding level of ignorance by the author, and failed to address several key aspects contributing to the need for higher tuition.

Ms. Hughes complains about the university resorting to raising tuition instead of seeking other options, but fails to provide any alternative solutions. She ignores the simple fact that at some point there becomes no other way to achieve a better product than by charging more for it.

I fail to see the problem with our university attempting to spend more money on “scholarships, implementing general education reforms and utilities.”

Furthermore, the fact that UK faculty and staff have endured years without pay raises only reinforces the need for additional funds.

How can our university hope to make any progress, let alone reach the coveted Top-20 status, without paying our best professors the wages they deserve?

In order to keep our top teachers and researchers, to continue to improve university facilities and to raise the status of UK, our administration must spend more money. It does not take a degree in economics to realize that with the state cutting the university’s budget, raising tuition rates is an absolute necessity.

Nowhere in her article does Ms. Hughes show a greater degree of ignorance than in her assertion that “when our basketball coach receives a $31,650,000, eight-year contract, something is amiss.”

How can one say something is amiss when said coach is a part of one of fewer than ten self-supporting athletic programs in the nation?

How can something be amiss when this athletic program contributes millions of dollars to the university’s scholarship fund?

Any students who believes their tuition dollars are going into Coach Cal’s pocket lack a basic understanding of how our university functions.

Finally, I take offense to Ms. Hughes labeling graduating seniors as “lucky” because of their escaping the rising tuition rates.

As a freshman, I consider myself lucky that when I graduate in three years, I will have received a better education and possess a degree that will be worth more because I graduated from a university committed to improving both its quality of education and its national reputation.

Far from “going to sit in the middle of the Main Building’s lobby in protest,” students should be praising our administration for continuing its efforts for improvement in tough economic times.

Matthew Bendure

Business freshman