I agree wholeheartedly with President Zartman when he says that the Tuition Challenge Grant "could cause unfavorable student-staff ratios and increase tuition for both out-of-state and graduate students." However, he (as well as the USG senators in favor of the TCG) fails to speak of the broader issue at hand in this debate: The TCG will force the administration to tighten their proverbial belts in order to make up for the budgetary restrictions.

The operative word in Wednesday's article is "could," as increasing class sizes and raising certain the tuition of certain students is only one option amongst many for cutting costs at Penn State. We could use non-union labor in construction projects to save on wages, reduce the number of construction projects we initiate, roll back pay increases for certain teachers or even cut back on the funding for student activities provided by the university.

Though I am sure we all share President Zartman's concerns for the university's academic standards, we must also recognize that a decreased budget will only hurt standards if the administration cares more for every other expenditure than they do for the value of our education.