President Gayle Hutchinson just taught all Chico State students that their voices don’t matter. Going against student’s advisory vote, Hutchinson decided to approve three proposed student fees on campus. This goes to show one thing: Administration on campus is not interested in students’ voices.

The advisory vote that was held April 25 got over 5,000 votes. Not ideal for a school of over 17,000 but still a large number. Over 3,000 of those votes were against the proposed fee increases, and hundreds of letters over the semester have also been submitted to Chico State’s administration.

In an email sent to students from Hutchinson, she stated that this fee increase would sustain athletics, student health and education for the next five years. So what does that really mean? Hutchinson has said that all of those organizations are in debt and without the fee increase they would have to be cut back, but by how much? In my opinion, it seems as if Hutchinson and the administration at Chico State are looking for an easy way out of a hard-financial situation. What happens when the next five years come to an end? It doesn’t quite make sense.

Students voted to not have a fee increase, even if it was advisory, it should still be taken seriously. That is the reality. Why did Chico State even hold a vote if it didn’t matter in the first place? Why did it hold seven forums for students to come and state their concerns about the fee increase if those statements weren’t taken seriously? Hutchinson and her team can say that they care about your financial frustrations but it won’t show until they choose to put students’ voices first.

Kendall George can be reached at [email protected] or @kendallmgeorge on Twitter.