Six o'clock. I went to get dinner at the HUB at 6 o'clock.

Man, what was I thinking? I mean, who would consider that to be a good time to get dinner?

Certainly not Penn State.

Every store in the damn food court was closed, even the cookie stand upstairs. And they'd been closed since 5.

Heaven forbid a student lives off campus or has a real job and can't get to campus by 5.

All I've heard about this past week was the increase in our tuition, and I thought about this really hard as I walked downtown to buy some food instead of using the meal points that I had already paid for.

It led me to this one question: Where is the money from the constant increase going?

People will be quick to say that all this money goes to the new buildings and construction projects that have taken place over the last few years. I used to be one of them.

However, after doing a little research on the subject, I found otherwise.

When new buildings are constructed, the cost comes from something called the Capital Budget.

This is in no way related to our tuition or the state appropriations that are normally discussed when the issue of increases is debated. The Capital Budget is a separate appropriation from Harrisburg, and funds cannot be diverted from tuition or normal state money to add to it.

Also, a bulk of the money for constructing the latest buildings on campus, namely the Information Sciences and Technology and the Biology/Chemistry buildings, came from private donations.

Just take a walk around the new IST building and you will know exactly what I am talking about. Here's a hint: Look at the names on the rooms. The 3Com classroom and the Xerox center are just two examples of the many corporate investments.

Finally, it is important to note one thing about the more aesthetic improvements to campus.

This money tends to come from alumni donations, and it cannot be used for anything other than what the donor asks it to be used for. So if I give $50 and say use it for the new fountain in front of the HUB, it has to be used for the new fountain in front of the HUB.

These types of improvements are usually alumni funded and done so through focused fund-raising drives.

This means that they are paid for by people giving money for specific projects. This also means that our tuition money is still not really used for these projects either.

I'm not totally ignorant on the way the world works. I know that we must spend money to remain competitive among other institutions. And I would in no way suggest that we do anything to limit our strides in that direction.

However, it is interesting to note that even before the rapid rate of increases, Penn State ranked in the top 10 on the national level for a number of different programs: journalism (fourth best school in the country), a number of fields of engineering, supply chain management, geology, health services, educational administration fields (including, ironically, higher education administration), ceramics and graphic design.

This is not to include the number of areas in which we ranked in the top 20 or 50.

It seems to me that we were doing pretty well for ourselves before all of the increases.

Now if we are not No. 1 in nearly all of these categories within the next few years, I think people will have a very legitimate complaint with the way Penn State is spending its money.

Now am I arguing that tuition should never go up? No, of course not.

It's called inflation, and it happens. Ask your grandparents how much they used to pay to go to a movie or buy a loaf of bread. But it should never be increasing by several, or even double the number of, percentage points above the inflation rate, especially not for a number of years in a row.

We must hold our administrators accountable to this increase. Students, do yourselves a favor. Get informed about how Penn State is spending your money and demand to know why.

It's getting spent somewhere and, apparently it is needed so much that we are asked to spend more money each year.

And I will tell you one thing; I swear to God that if I can't get into Chik-Fil-A or Panda Express because we're spending money on those damn "We Are ..." posters or some new convoluted plan to stop college kids from drinking, I am transferring. I wouldn't even think twice about it.