UA to restart tuition campaign

Undergraduate Assembly members will pass around their annual tuition petition next semester, seeking to revive the University's commitment to lowering tuition increases each year. "We have witnessed that in the face of fiscal crisis, the administration turns to the undergraduates to bear the brunt of the burden," said two UA members in a statement yesterday. "We do not want the University of Pennsylvania to become an elitist institution." The statement criticizes the administration for last year's tuition recommendation to the Trustees, which reversed the University's commitment to decrease the percentage increase of tuition every year. Administrators recommended that the Trustees raise tuition by 6.9 percent, .2 percent higher than last year's increase. "We want to send a strong signal to the administration that we will not tolerate this again," the statement reads. "We will not let them ignore their commitments." According to UA Chairperson Mitch Winston, last year's petition, which 4000 students signed, helped convince Trustees to adopt a 6.7 percent tuition increase, the same rate of increase as last year. Winston said the UA also sent state legislators the signatures of Pennsylvania residents from 122 cities to lobby for state funding for the University.

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