Penn State's Graduate Student Association (GSA) recently announced they want to create a plan where graduate students would get unlimited free rides on off-campus bus routes. This plan also proposes a $35 increase in undergraduate student semester activity fee.

This plan doesn't make any sense. Why should undergrads bear the burden of paying for off-campus gradute students to take the bus? No one is forcing these students to live so far away from campus. Understandably, some of them want to get away from downtown, where the pace of life is different from the outlying communities, but that is their decision to make. Different living arrangements call for different adjustments, and an increased cost in public transportation is one of them.

Also, most apartment complexes that are far off campus include a bus pass with the cost of the apartment rental. Graduate students should take better advantage of this situation and research which complexes offer bus passes to their residents. The GSA could send a pamphlet or e-mail to their members detailing which apartment complexes offer this sort of amenity. This would ensure that a large portion of grad students would know to rent these apartments.

How did the GSA even think this was a reasonable course of action? The university has proposed a $10 increase in the student activity fee already, pending the Board of Trustees approval. Adding another $35 to the existing increase is ludicrous, especially when it will only benefit a small portion of Penn State students.

According to the Penn State Fact Book, found online at www.psu.edu, there are slightly more than 36,000 undergraduate students at University Park. Compare this to about 6,000 graduate, medical and law students. In essence, about 83 percent of the student population will be paying a significant price for something only 17 percent would use.

UPUA President Jay Chamberlin had a good point when he said, "I think it's dangerous to raise the student activity fee for any particular group. I think that's a Pandora's Box that we don't want to open."

If the GSA wants to raise money for those students who are ailing from public transportation costs, then they should charge a membership fee to belong to their group. This would raise money for those individuals seeking aid and also would ensure that graduate students were bearing the burden of this cost, instead of undergraduate students.

It is simply unfair to ask undergraduates to pay an extra $35 a semester for a program they will rarely, if ever, use.