Cal Poly students were smart to reject costly University Union upgrade

Plans for a bigger, better University Union were sidetracked last week when Cal Poly students wisely rejected a $597 annual fee to fund the project.

Students made the right choice. Cal Poly’s fees already are among the highest in the CSU system. Adding nearly $600 per year would have been an unnecessary burden on future students, especially since the fee increase proposed by ASI would have been in effect for as long as 30 years.

Given the high stakes for the future, it was a low-key election. Fewer than 32 percent of students voted — that’s disappointing — but of those who did, 58 percent opposed the $180 million project initiated by Associated Students Inc.

Yes, the UU could use some modernizing. As has often been pointed out, it dates back to 1969, when personal computers and cellphones were the stuff of science fiction and enrollment stood at just 11,200 students. Today, it’s more than 20,000.

But given concerns about rising tuition and mounting student loan debt, asking students to pay an additional $600 for amenities like high-tech study spaces, more restaurants and a venue for movies and concerts was a huge stretch, despite what earlier polling seemed to indicate. According to that poll conducted last spring, 68 percent of respondents said they were very likely or somewhat likely to support a fee increase of $185 to $205 per quarter to upgrade the UU.

So what happened?

Pardon our bluntness, but how could the poll have been so wrong?

That’s one of the questions we hope ASI is asking, because it’s invested years of effort in the project. Money has been invested as well; ASI says it’s adding up the costs and should have that available at the end of the month.

ASI shouldn’t abandon the goal of improving and expanding the UU, but it needs to offer students a more affordable alternative. That will likely mean cutting some items from the wish list, finding other ways to fund the project and/or returning to students with a more reasonable funding request ... something substantially less than $600 per year.

This story was originally published March 4, 2016 at 6:23 PM with the headline "Cal Poly students were smart to reject costly University Union upgrade."