Penn State annually raises tuition, and annually Spanier pays lip service to the university's attempt to balance accessibility with academic quality. If Spanier and the university wish to take real action in showing the state of Pennsylvania and Penn State students that they are committed to keeping tuition down, they will immediately put Spanier's salary back in line with the salary of his peers, and will immediately release salary information.

Penn State obviously feels that it has something to hide. The community of Penn State students is yearly asked to submit to large tuition increases and at the same time is told that it cannot evaluate how its money is spent. Spanier's salary is just an example of what we, for lack of information, can only assume must be a general trend that the University wishes to keep quiet: administrator's salaries rising while students are faced with mounting financial burdens and faculty salaries that remain among the worst in the Big Ten.

The Board of Trustees says that its formal policy is not to release employee salaries because that is private information. That would be an acceptable policy if Penn State students were not faced with annually increasing tuition burdens. But in light of the fact that we are asked to pay more tuition every year, it is time that the board puts its responsibility to the students before its allegiance to the administration.