We, students, always seem to want something. We always want better dorms. We always want cable. We always want our refund checks to come in on time.
However, I rarely hear students asking the pertinent questions. How about where is our money going? Well -I wanted to include exact figures. However, I could not find the University of Louisiana Systems’ fiscal budget for the 2005 _” 2006 year on their Web site. Therefore, I have to do the “speculation budget.”
Let’s say that 4,000 of the 5,000 students here each pay $4,000 completely for school. That’s $1.6 million alone, and $3.2 million for the year. Now, I’m not sure of how much the faculty members’ salaries are, but let’s estimate $2 million a year. That leaves a $1.2 million that GSU has to spend.
Now, according to President Judson, GSU received $10 million in federal funds last year. So, that’s now $11.2 million that Grambling has in funds. Grambling also receives alumni donations; let’s say that is a flat $1 million a year. Add that up, that’s $12.2 million.
In case you didn’t know, the GSU “G” and the name “Grambling State University” are copyrighted by the university, and vendors are supposed to pay a fee in order to use it in any way. So, let’s estimate that to be around $500,000 a year. That is currently $12.7 million that Grambling has in funds for a year.
Oh wait – let’s do the expenses. The unappreciative students of GSU tear up things – a lot. So let’s take – $1 million from repairs for a year. Let’s take another $1 million from travels of the SGA, Student Union Board, and GSU president and staff. That leaves $10.7 million for Grambling to spend within a year.
Do notice that I, for the sake of this column, acted as if the SGA and Student Union Board did not have their own budget, which is made up of tuition. I also did not even account for the numerous grants that the departments of GSU receive every year. Also, the numbers I estimated are VERY generous.
Despite all of this, we still have $10.7 million left for Grambling to spend. Divide that in half and you get $5.35 million to spend each semester.
Yet, I rarely see anything done with that money. Yeah, we got new computers, thanks to that technology fee that we pay. However, it took us how long to get those computers? The ones in the library are the first to be added since I’ve been here in Summer 2003.
Sure, the cafe was renovated. However, it took nearly two years for the cafe to even begin groundwork after being approved. Also, wasn’t that Aramark’s money? If not, GSU has received more money since that time.
The new coliseum is being built. Big whoop. The coliseum was approved so long ago that it is ALREADY outdated. Why would you build a coliseum that cannot even hold a SWAC basketball tournament? While we can hold high school basketball tournaments, the SWAC is where the money’s at.
There are some new dorms being built. However, it’s been years since students have been asking for dorms, and that money has been accumulating. Oh wait … that money is not even being spent on dorms. It’s called private funding. So … Grambling doesn’t even pay for these new dorms.
Where could this money go? Spend the money on additional parking spaces. I understand the GSU Police Department needs to write tickets to pay its officers, but the parking on this campus is ridiculous.
Pay the students of GSU to do the things that Tech students do. Don’t hire a Tech student to photograph a Grambling event. That’s like hiring a gynecologist to perform a heart transplant.
Let the Mass Communication and Business departments collaborate on the brochures that GSU issues to students and prospective students. It will definitely pay off, and be a LOT cheaper.
To wrap it up, spend our money on some good things. Good things are being done; we need to see the results. After looking at all of the figures, I still am left with the one baffling question: Where the frick is our money going?