Despite the best efforts of our university to offset the $7 million of debt Rowan will incur if it does indeed lose $4 million in state funding this June, tuition and fees will most likely increase.

A five to six percent increase, as estimated by Rowan University President Donald Farish, would manifest into approximately $1000 extra in tuition and fees from each full-time undergraduate.

The effects of this will be as diverse as the varying depths of our student body's pockets.

A portion of students, underclassmen mostly, will shrug knowing that the added expense will be passed along to some parental figure(s) that are graciously footing the bill. The increase will not go over so smoothly for everyone though.

It would be impolite to attempt to reach some of them at this hour, but being that this appears in the Op-Ed section I humbly ask you to trust us on this: There are students on our campus that struggle now to pay tuition. A hike of any kind will prove very difficult.

The reasons for this vary. Some students take on the responsibility of putting themselves through school, either in part or in full. Sometimes these students have no choice but to pay their own way.

There are students that come from households in which their income helps support an impoverished family. Others have started families of their own and have to divide their funds between educating themselves and raising their children.

Some come from large families, meaning that money for higher education has to be split into smaller chunks as siblings become old enough to consider college.

The fact that Rowan can't afford to keep tuition and fees at a flat rate is not a reflection of the quality of the university. It is instead an unfortunate truth inherent in the relationship between a public institution and its home state's budget.

There are solutions for current students that will be hard-pressed to come up with the extra money to stay at Rowan.