It’s too bad. It really is. Just too bad.

It’s nearly shameful that no one, outside of CAB president junior Brooke Dey and student-body vice president senior Kaela Phillips, showed up at the town hall meetings to discuss the proposed $100-increase of student fees.

It really goes to show that nothing, not even money, can push Simpson students to action. We’re just too apathetic.

That $100-a-year increase, if passed by the Board of Trustees, isn’t chump change to students paying their own way through college. For current freshmen, it’ll add up to $300 extra – maybe a month’s rent after college. For sophomores, $200 – maybe enough to cover books for a semester. For juniors, the damage will be $100 – a new back-to-school outfit, accessories included. All in all, it adds up.

Now, that’s not to say students should’ve protested the increase. If students support the increase, they should’ve shown up to defend it. If students don’t support the increase, they should’ve shown up to challenge it. Either way, they should’ve been able to form some kind of rational, intelligent reaction to it.

Student leaders should not assume that students’ silence equals their consent. In this case, no news is not necessarily good news. Rather, student leaders should be alarmed by the student body.

Unfortunately, not much can be done. Nothing, it seems, can entice students enough – not even raising student fees. This isn’t a new problem: Simpson hasn’t had any large student reaction to war in Iraq, gas prices, Supreme Court justices or environmental issues. Before the meeting, there was hope that money – the last resort – would get students interested. It seems to be a problem without a solution, or at least a problem Simpson students don’t seem interested in solving.