RadioActive wrote:

Another Ontario campus radio station has pushed the panic button, laying off its music director in anticipation of not being able to get enough funding next year. CJAM-FM in Windsor has been on the air for 35 years and has begun a campaign to raise at least $110,000 before the next school year.

Campus radio station CJAM cuts staff, braces for lost funding
 
CIUT, the U. of T. broadcaster, meanwhile, just completed an ongoing money boosting campaign of its own, with on air pleas for support to listeners. (Its website's home page features nothing but this.) It hopes to raise $100,000 and is using one of the oddest incentives I’ve seen in a while – a lucky winner gets a trip to, of all places, Dubrovnik, Croatia!
 
It’s facing what a lot of campus outlets in the province are – a new government policy that will allow students to decide if they want to pay for certain university services. What strikes me about this is that the new policy hasn’t even kicked in yet and already they’re convinced without mandatory funding, no one will put up any money to pay for their continued existence.
 
They’re so sure no one will support them that they’re already laying off people and cutting back. What does that say about the value students put on the affected stations? If they think so little of them, maybe they shouldn’t be on the air in the first place.
 
I know that opinion won’t sit well with some here. And I love campus radio. I worked (if you can call being an unpaid volunteer) at the old closed circuit U. of T. radio before it even it had a licence. It was a great place to learn, make mistakes and shape your future on air personality. But I wouldn’t have blamed the students there if they didn’t want to give up their hard earned money to keep the lights on and the board working.    
 
Imagine going into a grocery store and being forced to buy cherries if all you wanted were bananas. “But I don’t like cherries,” you proclaim. And you’re told you have no choice but to spend money on something you don’t want. (But enough about the CBC...)

I hope campus radio survives this change. It would be a shame to see some of the most creative and unformatted places on the dial disappear over money. But you can’t make people pay for something they don’t use. (Unless you’re on cable and have to subsidize channels you never watch.)
 
Either way, it’s going to be a challenging year for university stations. I hope most of them are still around next year, backed by people who really want to hear them. But no one should be forced to pay for something they don't listen to. 

I spent more time at Ryerson's campus station (CRFM) than I did in class in the early '70s! It was a GREAT learning experience but best of all it was fun. Quite sad that these outlets may not survive due to lack of money. Aspiring broadcasters need a place to develop their skills and campus radio is a good place to do that.