Imagine this. It’s 12:45 and I’m walking out of class. My stomach rumbles. It’s time for lunch. I go to Subway, purchase lunch, and grab a copy of The New York Times. I settle down at a table and read about what’s happening in the world between classes.

This is no longer possible at Canisius College because of budget cuts. Undergraduate Student Association’s (USA) President of Business and Finance Connor Rosenecker slashed our school’s paper subscriptions to USA Today, The New York Times, The Buffalo News, and various others. According to last week’s The Griffin (the College newspaper) article, USA Adapts to Decrease in Student Population, Rosenecker stated that “we felt like we weren’t causing detriment to the student experience if we cut that expense.”

This is also coming from the committee that slashed the budget for Senior Week.

Maybe I’m being too harsh on the USA Budget Committee, but last time I checked, schools, especially colleges, were supposed to be the pillars of literacy and political awareness. Unless I wait for our college president’s occasional politically-charged emails, I need to log on to one of our school’s maddeningly slow computers and browse the web.

On the other hand, free newspapers used to be easy to pick up in moments of spare time. Alex LaRocca, ’18, also mourns this loss. He suffered a concussion and views all media on paper rather than a screen. He has copies of every single paper that pertained to the election. His collection will grow no larger.

The “reduced budget” argument is preposterous. Canisius always has enough money for literacy—if needed, we should reduce the money for NFTA Metro passes. Every year when I go to pick up mine, I always see stacks of cards that are never picked up. Surely there must be a way to solve this problem.

It’s possible Rosenecker and the USA Budget Committee don’t mind being uninformed, but hopefully, they now realize that these items are important to others.