Alumni should pay athletic fees instead of students

I love the University of Houston. I love UH so much that upon completing my bachelor’s degree I came back for a master’s degree and a doctorate. And on Tuesday I will be voting against the student referendum for a new football stadium and the Hofheinz Pavilion renovation.

UH students face an unstable financial environment. In 2009, 42 percent of new students took out loans to pay for their tuition while 82 percent received some form of financial aid.

UH is made up primarily of students who attempt to work their own way through school or who receive assistance of some sort to make their way through.

Moreover, the job market upon graduation is bleak. UH wants 39,820 students who are facing financial uncertainty and who are already having a difficult time paying for school to give them at least an additional $90,000,000.

Students will subsidize the athletics department to a tune of $4,407,707 this year. Every semester you are charged a student service fee. This semester the fee was $190. About 27 percent of that fee is allocated for intercollegiate athletics.

If the referendum passes, over the next 25 years, students would pay at least an additional $90 million on top of the $4.4 million that we already pay. Students would be spending over $210 million to subsidize the athletics department.

Alumni who attend the games are financially stable enough to spend money on UH. The cash-strapped students should not be asked to shoulder the burden.

— Samuel Brower, Ph.D. student, education

Tags: Hofheinz Pavilion, Robertson Stadium, student fees, Student Service Fee, UH