New colleges' budgets low

By Staff Editorial     10/28/10 7:00pm

Duncan and McMurtry Colleges were well tended last year by their sister colleges. However, now as full-fledged colleges, neither Duncan nor McMurtry has the advantage of sharing sister college resources such as common room furniture, game room equipment and Beer Bike gear (see story, page 1). Instead, both colleges were forced to make heavy investments in their futures by purchasing a multitude of things that other established colleges do not need to budget for. Furthermore, most of the other nine colleges have the luxury of rollover money from previous years. Since these new colleges were not given any extra appropriations in the Dean of Undergraduate's college budgets, Duncan and McMurtry have received a disproportionate sum of the budget.

While the Thresher acknowledges that the university faces financial limits in its college budget allocations, it is certainly disappointing that these glaring needs were neglected in the distribution of financial resources. It is imperative that all 11 colleges are on an even playing field; it should be unacceptable that certain students have marred experiences because their colleges did not have the fiscal resources to provide in a way similar to other colleges did. The administration needs to alleviate the discrepancy that exists between the new colleges and old colleges.

As luck would have it, it seems that the university has recently picked up a $9.5 million surplus, a portion of which could be very effectual in the alleviation of McMurtry and Duncan's financial woes.

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