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You can see the upcoming events for the UWEC College Republicans on its Web page. 

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You can also see what loans, grants or scholarships are available on the UWEC Financial Aid Office's Web page.

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Tuition increases have students looking to candidates

Audio version of this story    The UWEC Financial Aid office is  located in the Schofield building, room 115. (Photo by Jill Janke)

UW-Eau Claire freshmen Emily Pierce has her routine working the register at the local Shopko down flat. Greet the customer, smile, ask them if they found everything OK, scan their purchases, and tell them to have a good day.

Pierce works hard at her job because she knows that she needs it to pay the bills. Like many other college students, Pierce works in addition to her studies at UW-Eau Claire in order to cover all of her costs.

Pierce receives student loans but she said they just aren’t enough. According to fellow student Tessa Pecha, there is a lot more that students need to pay for other than tuition.

 “Your income alone only pays for things like rent, food and your cell phone,” Pecha said. “To tack on thousands of dollars for tuition makes it impossible to pay for everything.”

Pecha is not alone in worrying about paying for school and other expenses. According to Pierce and Pecha, that’s why education is an important political issue for students and some presidential candidates such as Sen. Barack Obama, are working on helping students by increasing government loans and grants.  

According to President of the UWEC College Democrats, Dylan Jambrek, the Democratic side wants the government to give students some relief by increasing student grants and loans.  This is evident in Obama’s attempts at increasing the maximum amounts students receive.

Republican candidates have a slightly different view, according to the chairman of the UWEC College Republicans, Tom Burton.

“Education is very important, especially K-12 education, which the government is most directly involved with,” Burton said. “I think that Republicans see college education as something responsible young adults take care of themselves.”

Jambrek says that Republicans are trying to cut funding from the university system, while most Democratic presidential candidates are for expanding student aid.

"I can say that I am disappointed in the Republican Party for holding up increases in UW funding, as well as appointing Steve Nass [a Whitewater Republican representative] to chair the Higher Education Committee," Jambrek said. "Nass is one of the biggest opponents to the UW System, adopting a 'starve the beast' mentality and trying to cut funding from UW's while trying to save face by offering a tuition freeze. This has been the move by the Republican Party. But if you cut state funding and freeze tuition, the regents have no choice but to cut professors and programs, which is something no one wants."

Burton says that he would not necessarily be against increasing aid, but his main concern, along with other republicans, is where that money is coming from. He said they need to cut other programs in order to come up with additional money.

“Overall Republicans are against expansion of the government,” Burton said.

According to the UWEC's Financial Aid Web page, the estimated annual cost for a student attending the university who is a Wisconsin resident is just under $14,000.  Tuition, room and board, books, transportation and personal cost estimates are included in this figure.

According to Jambrek and Burton, education is one of several important issues for the election. It’s likely that these two very different approaches to how students pay for school might play a role in student voting next November.

"I want to see what they offer for possible solutions," Pecha said. "It's going to determine who I vote for."