I know many of you have visited The Study, our local peer tutoring service on campus, and those of you who haven’t are missing out on a very valuable resource. But don’t you worry: Perhaps soon enough you won’t even know what you were missing out on because the new Study will look much different.

Academic Enhancement at The Study is in danger of undergoing severe budget cuts. This absurd decision will have monumental effects on all of us who utilize this helpful resource. However, it is also going to affect the incoming freshman next year, who may have a larger class than ever. How are we supposed to be provided with adequate services when UK is continuing to take away resources while we continue to have more and more people who need them? If there’s a 9 percent tuition increase for the coming fall, why are we losing services our current tuition is supposed to provide for us?

I am a freshman this year, and I have been regularly visiting The Study since last semester, when I thought I was going to die in my chemistry class. It is no exaggeration to say that last semester I visited The Study twice a week on a regular basis, and daily a good week before exams. I am a “regular” there. This semester, I’m there once a week to work on biology. Without those tutors, I would not have done as well in my classes and would have been more likely to not continue in that particular course.

Perhaps you don’t quite understand the severity of the impact it had on my grades. Thinking back, I’m not sure I would have passed a single chemistry homework assignment. I would have had no one to help explain the same problem over and over without a second thought. It’s often hard to repeatedly ask a teacher a question or have him or her explain a specific idea. The tutors at The Study have already been through these classes and can understand you at a different level than any professor could. The setup of The Study also allows for you to work with other students in your specific subject, who may be encountering the same problems as you.

However, The Study is more than just tutoring for me — some of these tutors have become so much more than that. I keep coming back because I am surrounded by people who will send me a message wishing me good luck on a test, give me genuine advice on selecting classes for the fall or even talk about future career plans.

I wish more people knew what was going on so they could help take action. I have been made aware that nothing has been finalized with regard to the budget, but I could not help but want to voice my concern about the threat of there being any cuts from the program, however small they may end up being.

I know students are starting to take action with petitions to support The Study, and I truly hope that whoever is making the budget decisions takes these actions not as demands, but simply as a cry for help from students who use or would use The Study’s services. I really cannot imagine not having this program that so many students have become accustomed to in past years.