Dear Editor,
What type of student is more valuable to a university, a commuter or a resident? Ideally, all students attending a university should be treated equally and the benefits they receive should be dispersed evenly. Ideally, this question should not even have to be asked. However, this ideal situation is not the case at Marywood University.
Several instances of poor policies that negatively affect the commuter student populace especially stand out. First, something that affects residents and commuters alike is the escalating cost to park a car on campus. A reasonable question that students should be asking, especially the majority of students who pay these fees (commuters), is why have costs risen by $50 for two consecutive years given that no new parking lots have been constructed?
The second question that ought to be raised is, what happened to the Commuter Lounge? With the loss of this space, and by not creating a replacement for it anywhere on campus, Marywood University officials have essentially said “who cares” to the commuter students on campus. Now left are the multiple lounges on campus that are chronically loud (nonviable areas for study) and the library which tends to overflow at busy portions of the semester. Other institutions have study spaces for their non-residential students. In fact, the University of Scranton not only has many excellent study spaces on campus, but they also have lockers for all of their commuter students and an organization that arranges parties and other benefits for them.
Tuition at Marywood is $28,000. Commuter students make up the majority of students that attend Marywood. My question is whether I am unreasonable in wondering why some of this $28, 000 per year, per student, is not spent to benefit the majority of the students?
Bill Loughney
Sophomore Pre-Med