I commend The Post for its vivid graphic representation of how the university spends tuition and fees (What They're Doing With Your Dollar
May 5). Multi-million dollar budgets, even when well-reported, can make for eye-glazing, mind-numbing reading. Bringing the budget down to pennies on the dollar is a good way to understand where the money goes.
Unfortunately, the graphic on the Tech Fee could be misinterpreted. Are students in Information and Telecommunication Systems (ITS) really paying 36 cents on the dollar to Journalism and 26 cents to Media Arts and Studies, while contributing a paltry 5 cents to their own school? Surely, that's not fair.
It's also not correct. Tech fee income ($297,641 in 2008-2009) is allocated to schools based on the number of majors. Journalism receives 35.59 percent of the tech fee because it has more majors than any other school in the college. Collectively, they contribute most to the tech fee and journalism receives the largest share of tech fee income. ITS, with the smallest number of tech fee-paying majors, receives the smallest share. That's fair.
David Mould is an associate dean in the Scripps College of Communication. 4
Opinion
