An open letter to all University Presidents

An open letter to all University Presidents:

  A budget breakdown my alma mater mailed to me showed that 62% of our budget is staff and faculty salary and benefits. While I applaud the transparency, that makes it pretty hard to look favorably on a donations request: tuition has increased there 29.36% since 2005, in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.   

  You University Presidents no doubt have many reasons for this: the marketing perspective on price being perceived as value in competition with other universities, competition for good faculty, and I know that few if any students pay the full amount of tuition.  But in the midst of staggeringly high unemployment, American philanthropists have wiser and more deserving places to put their means when your university asks for support.  

  During my 4 years internship, my CEO asked our entire company, himself included, to take a pay freeze.  And we did it willingly because we understood the investment we were making in an institution we believed in.  

 Has your university asked for similar sacrifices from its employees?  Or will the future bear the brunt of this generation's economic mistakes?  More debt on the back of our youth is not the answer to your university's future.  

 Thank you