Ivey kids have problems too?

To the Editor:

I am outraged at Western administration's proposal to raise program fees for the Honours Business Administration program by yet another $2,000.

There is a myth originating in the student body and being perpetuated by publications such as The Gazette that Ivey students are somehow better able to cope with high tuition and thus, that our huge tuition fees are somehow justified.

It is also a popular idea that being a part of the HBA program

is a free meal ticket for the rest of one's life. I would like to dispel

these myths.

Let it be known that HBA students are no richer than any other student. We are the same students who sat in science and arts classes last year and the same students who struggled to make tuition payments of $4,500. In today's uncertain economic climate, my colleagues and I are struggling to find summer work.

This summer, look for HBA students working shoulder-to-shoulder with all other undergraduate students. We will be there waiting tables, telemarketing and doing what we can to make ends meet.

The difference is that there is no way we can make ends meet. Western's administration has guaranteed that students in professional programs at this university will graduate with monumental debt loads.

Administration has shown us that our right to accessible education is secondary to the right of students in all other programs. With every tuition hike, professional students are implicitly told they are unwelcome at this

university.

I understand why I pay more tuition than other undergraduate students – I agree that I should. However, my paying $5,000 more than the

students who entered Ivey the year before me is simply insulting.

Western is trampling on my right to be educated because I selected to study business administration while my fellow students turn a blind-eye in the mistaken belief that we will easily be able to pay off our debt after graduation.

I urge you Western, both administration and students – stop marginalizing professional students. I have the right to my education too.

Beth Spence

Honours Business Administration I