B.U. Students Protest Cost Increases

Boston University (B.U.) students will continue their protest of next year's $550 increase in total college costs at a rally on Friday and a teach-in on Monday.

While students claim the tuition increase could be avoided if B.U. eliminates certain expenditures, John R. Silber, president of B.U., said in a statement released last week the nation's 7 per cent inflation rate necessitates the increase. B.U.'s tuition, room and board costs are set at $6280 for the academic year 1978-79.

John Phillips, a member of the student Coaliation Against the Hike, said Monday the University should make public its full budget and record of yearly expenditures rather than defend the increase as a response to inflation.

Wesley J. Christensen, director of public relations at B.U., said Monday the university's budget is available to the public in the B.U. library.

Phillips said a full record of the university's payments would reveal gross expenditures for a number of lawsuits and real estate acquisitions.

Christensen said less than one per cent of the university's budget goes toward lawsuits and a very small part of the budget goes toward the purchase of real estate.

Great Expectations

The rally will call for the revocation of the tuition increase and for the dropping of charges against Garret Virchek, who was arrested for trespassing last Wednesday night when Silber defended the tuition increase to an audience of over 900 students, Phillips said.

Virchek, who is not a B.U. student, was one of the organizers of a rally on March 16 when 500 protestors broke into a meeting of the B.U. board of trustees and briefly occupied the student union.

"There is no way the tuition increase is going to be rolled back," Christensen said, reiterating what Silber said at last Wednesday's meeting.

The teach-in will review B.U.'s financial policies so the coalition can "better educate students as to what is going on," Phillips said.