Students have been staring up at cranes and construction crews for years as the university administration continues to remake Penn State in our growing corporate image. And it comes as shrinking state appropriations and growing costs related to the university doing general business are causing our tuition to go up every year. Both phenomena continue to march on with no end in sight.

The old adage goes that nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. However, at Penn State, nothing is certain except tuition increases and constructing that shiny new building for students soon to be sitting in some pharmacutical company's lab. Students may look toward Old Main with a silent or not-so-silent rage: "How dare they rebuild this place to the point where I won't recognize it in five years, when it will take me 50 years to pay off the increasing bills this university throws on my back?"

The boxed university response to such inquiries has been steady throughout this latest phase of expansion, rebuilding and revamping. Time and time again, the answer has been that Penn State keeps tuition dollars and the money given from the state and private donors that go toward supplementing those dollars, separate from the capital budget, which pays for construction and physical repairs to campus infrastructure. In many ways, it is an accurate statement. The state legislature provides money earmarked for general university operations -- the things that tuition dollars also help pay for -- separate from its capital appropriation. Also, money is solicited from private donors for specific purposes; separate for supplementing education and construction.

But there is a hole in this rhetoric, one you can drive a Mack truck through -- or more like a Mack truck full of cash out of our pockets. The university takes out loans to pay for construction projects that exceed what is available for them in the capital budget. Penn State spokesman Tysen Kendig has said that a "significant portion" of ongoing construction has loans taken out on them, and that tuition money is used "routinely" to help service debt.

In other words, tuition money is being used regularly to pay for construction projects -- just in a round-about way that takes an accountant to explain. So if you are a student OK with your extra pocket cash going to that bridge across Atherton Street, then it's all good. But if you've had that sinking feeling, that latent anger that your money is going to feed the steam-rolling construction trend, then guess what? You were right all along. So make your voice heard the next time Penn State decides to put a Taj Mahal next to your dorm. It's partially your dollar.