All need based items are based on PARENTS income. However, most students get little to no help from their parents for college, so they have to pay it all themselfs. How do they do this? Loans, working 10, 20, 30 hours a week, and turning their summer "vacation" into trying to make ends meet. UW-Madison students should not have to pay for other students to go to school. We should pay for OUR education NOT THEIRS. After we graduate and find work, sure our alumni dollars toward scholarships can go to it, but NOT the dollar of students who worked hard to get here. Personally I've been working since 6th grade to aford college and every summer and break to make it work. Why should I have to pay extra just because my parents make a certain amount of money? Furthermore, What about the students not in L&S majors, this will have little benefit to those other students, and some departments already have additional tuition costs. Why not just make L&S or needed departments pay their own additional costs, instead of students in other majors footing the bill?

Why on earth is it remotely fair for one student to have to pay for another student's tuition. Why on earth would it be fair for one student's parents to pay for another students tuition. The initiative is a joke. I agree that the University is in need of more fund to retain faculty and stuff like that, but why would Shartin (martin) think that she could just slide this in along with it. $250 dollars more a year would be worth it to me if it all went to retaining and recruiting world-class faculty. Not worth it so someone else can have an extra $250 in their pockets. How much easier can we make it for low-income student to go to school.

My parents both came from large families and busted their butts and worked up the social classes. They did not receive any help from the government, such as tuition breaks. Although my parents could afford to pay for my college, they are making me. So why should I be responsible to pay more for my education just because my parents make more than 80,000 per year? Why am I not only responsible for paying for my tuition and another student's? As it is, I can't get any loans as a result of my parent's income and why should I be punished even more for it? The wisconsin initiative is SOCIALISM. Last time I checked, the United States of America is a democratic country!

In case you haven't noticed there is constantly work being done on things in Grainger (which maybe you also didn't realize was just expanded). They work on the new part of it ALL the time and the things that aren't being worked on need work. The desks are falling apart already and the ceiling is leaking. I also see them in there everyday making repairs to the walls. If you would actually take the time to build something nicely the first time then you wouldn't have to waste so much extra money maintaining it over long periods of time. As a student already paying you $11,000 a semester in tuition alone you think that you wouldn't want to waste all of that at this liberal school. Why don't you make the increase the same or at least closer to the same for in state and out of state students especially if you want to keep wasting all of our money. The programs here are ranked well but that is honestly the only thing going for this school right now and I know myself and other people WILL stop WASTING our tuition dollars in this state that has so many problems with government spending and trying to become such a socialist economy.

I have to admit, some of the components of the Madison Initiative sound like good ideas, but there is a very big problem in making students who are struggling to pay for their own education, pay for the others who cannot. Especially when some of those receiving "need-based" financial aid really do not need it. Take my roommate, for example. Has a full, "need-based" scholarship, but has the money EVERY week to purchase her marijuana. Even makes a little extra money on the side b/c she sometimes sells it! She even gets high BEFORE she goes to class, work, volunteer, etc. Frankly, I do not think that we, or our parents, should have to pay out of pocket for students to receive "need-based" financial aid, when they have the money to buy drugs. (My story is not the only one I've heard that sounds like this. I have heard many other people complain about their friends, roommates, etc. that do the same thing) Therefore, I think that the students who are receiving financial aid should have to submit to drug testing. This should not be a problem for students not using drugs. For those that are, and who fail the drug test, give their aid to someone who is using it for the purpose for which it was intended.