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In the spirit of a positive campaign, I won't comment on my opponents platform. However, I encourage everyone, as Ryan has done, to look critically at BOTH of our platforms and engage in discussions on places like Macinsiders, Facebook, and talking to the candidates themselves about what they think are good ideas, what they think are bad ideas, and most importantly, what they think are achievable ideas.
On the topic of students money and tuition, while I'm here, I'd like to lay out a realistic idea I have on how the MSU can be more financially accountable to students.
Though tuition (outside of our lobbying capacity) is completely outside the jurisdiction of the MSU and the SRA, what an SRA representative can do is work with the student fees that the MSU collects to ensure you are getting the most value out of those fees.
As it stands right now, the MSU only widely publishes that you pay $111.49 into the black box of the "MSU operating fund."Specific department and service figures are available in the budget, which, to the credit of the good work of our president and VP Finance, was published in the MSU State of the Union. However, what I would like to see, is a more simplified, dollar-by-dollar breakdown of exactly what portion of your student fees are going to what areas.
This way, if you don't like that the MSU is spending x-dollars of your money on x-service, you can let the SRA know and have something done about it. I am not promising that if I'm elected you'll all have more money from reduced tuition or student fees, because thats simply not realistic. What I am promising is a push towards greater transparency in the way the MSU spends your money, hopefully giving all students a greater say in how their student fees are spent.
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