Prioritize support for students

By Jennifer Chacon-Duran, Berkeley | 10/20/2023

Regarding “UC Berkeley unveils plan for $2B space research center just 7 miles from Stanford” (Bay Area, SFChronicle.com, Oct.16): As a UC Berkeley student, hearing about the university’s future plans is ridiculous, considering we are constantly dealing with a “lack of funding.”

Our graduate student instructors are still not paid a livable wage, our bathrooms are always dirty and out of order, our buildings don’t have air conditioning and our non-science, technology, engineering and mathematics departments are the least funded.

Additionally, being a low-income Latina student, it is outrageous that my school prioritizes being “the No. 1 public university” by “being a pioneer in innovation” rather than working to keep student retention high. What’s the point of being the top university if more students continue to drop out every semester?

UC Berkeley has so many problems to address and fix. Making huge plans like these is not the answer and will only worsen existing problems and create bigger ones.

UC Berkeley should try a different route to be a pioneer in innovation: It should prioritize supporting its students and their success. Berkeley isn’t the university in California that doesn’t care about its students, but it can be the first to work to support them.