We’re now deep into the cold of winter, and something that many students had mentioned is that their apartments in Boulevard do not have working heat. The bigger problem here is that after putting a work order in, one apartment told us that they were told that their heat would not be fixed. That response is simply unacceptable.

A few weeks ago in New York City, a building burnt down, claiming the lives of 19 people. The cause of the fire: a malfunctioning space heater. Residents had complained about the heat not working in the building for months and were repeatedly ignored.

Point Park faced a similar dilemma: spend the money to fix the heat or risk a student bringing in an (technically illegal on campus) cheap space heater they got off of Amazon that ends up being faulty. Even when putting aside this hypothetical space heater dilemma, there’s still a glaring issue: we pay a lot of money for these apartments, and it is not enough to just shrug off issues students are having, especially when people’s apartments are below 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

This is part of a bigger issue within the university: an unwillingness to address problems because of cost. Last week, we wrote about how the university should be providing testing to all students exposed to COVID-19, not just those who are symptomatic. The university’s argument against that is the cost associated with testing.

After many students complained about the heating, the university has indicated that they will be sending someone to fix the problems. This is similar to an issue many students faced last year with internet outages; the university said they would be unable to fix it, enough people voiced their issues with it, and the university had no choice but to fix the problem. The same thing happened during initial stages of the pandemic; the university didn’t want to offer pass no credit for the majority of classes, but SGA and enough students made their voices heard, and so the pass no credit option was implemented for a time.

Higher education, as a concept, is viewed as a monolithic institution, which cannot be challenged or corrected in any way. That is not the case. Point Park is a symbiotic relationship, between both the student body and the school. We, as a student body, hold more power than we realize, and likewise, if the university administration truly cares about being the best university that it can be, must provide for its students.