Message to the pols: Listen to college students — Part 2

As usual, many students who could vote won't be going to the polls this year. Why not? Many reasons:

• Not engaged
• Too busy with other things like school, work, play
• Unfamiliar with the voting process
• Unsure of who or what to vote for
• Disgusted with the negativity of the political process
  

This is a terrible tragedy since the decisions made by today's voters will affect these young people... and their kids... and their grandkids. Some, however, are engaged and passionate about their beliefs. Below is a letter from a political science student at Minnesota State University Mankato about a recent meeting he had with his congressional representative. (From the Minnesota State University Mankato Reporter.)

Tuition Increases a Deciding Factor in Elections

by Casey Carmody

Before Tuesday's election, I wanted to relay some very important information to Minnesota State - Mankato students about one the candidate's wishing to represent them by being elected to Minnesota's First Congressional District.

Recently, I met Representative Gil Gutknecht while lobbying for student concerns in Washington D.C. I was immediately impressed with the representative because even though he had an extremely busy schedule that day, he wanted to sit down and meet with me and two other students I was with. Unfortunately, this feeling was short-lived. When one of my colleagues began asking for the congressman to support an increase in the amount of money available through the Pell Grant (a grant for students whose families can not help pay for college by any means possible), Rep. Gutknecht immediately interrupted her and said students need to stop asking for higher education funding from the federal government and need to start focusing on talking to the universities about curbing tuition. He then started quoting tuition increases University of Minnesota students have faced in the past 10 years.

Just in case you didn't know, the U of M is not even in Rep. Gutknecht's congressional district. Winona State University is though. Minnesota State - Mankato is too. Rep. Gutknecht was quite surprised when the other students and I told him the rate of tuition increases at these two universities was much higher than that of the U of M. He did not know Mankato students have experienced an increase in tuition of 67 percent in the past five years. He did not know Winona students have experienced an increase in tuition of 73 percent in the past five years. Rep. Gutknecht had no idea of what was going on at two of the largest colleges in the state, both of which he is supposed to represent in the U.S. House of Representatives. This means he is misrepresenting more than 20,000 students at these two colleges alone, not to mention the several community and technical colleges that are within his district. Not once does he mention higher education as being an important issue on his campaign website or on his congressional website. He has repeatedly dismissed education as being a secondary concern. Clearly, Rep. Gutknecht is out of touch with what students need. Is this someone we really want to be representing us, Minnesota State - Mankato students, in Congress? I don't know, but it is definitely something to keep in mind when you head to the polls Nov. 7th.

More about Casey Carmody and his quest for lowering college costs is here. "Message to the pols: Listen to college students — Part 1" is here.