The past couple of weeks, I’ve been urged by various students to protest against budget cuts to the Arts Initiative. As someone in one of my theater troupes recently announced, we should do so because "we're all supporters of the arts."
I've certainly enjoyed the Arts Initiative's discounted tickets and free museum admissions, and I've partaken in a few film and theater projects that have been funded by Gatsby Grants. But just because my friends and I benefit from Arts Initiative funding, why should we mandate that everyone else in the Columbia community pay for it?
I wholeheartedly support the arts, but what I don't support is selfishly forcing everyone else to support the arts. Instead, I’m more than happy to individually pay a bit more for my tickets and chip in a bit to fund my arts projects if it means I’m no longer forcing all families to pay steeper and steeper fees to subsidize my and my friends’ extracurricular affairs.
