So with all of that opportunity waiting just down the street, it puzzles us that a person would still choose to deface public property at Grand Valley State University in order to release their creative expression.

Rather than enter ArtPrize for a chance to take increase their artistic publicity and potentially take home a cash prize, vandals recently defaced a wall near Lubbers Stadium and three areas of sidewalk on GVSU’s Allendale Campus, all of which will cost the university a total of about $800 to repair.

If the vandals are not caught, then the money to repair the defacements will come from student tuition.

Listen guys, we students already have enough trouble trying to pay our ways through college. We’re already dealing with a state government that refuses to give the university the floor funding per student it is supposed to get, tuition rates that have steadily increased in recent years and a block scheduling change that forces some of us to pay an extra $412 to $609 just to take language classes that put us one credit over the set rate – we don’t need to throw an unnecessary $800 in because you got the impulse to spray-paint on the side of the stadium.

Don’t get the wrong idea – we’re all about creative expression in West Michigan. Again, ArtPrize is just down Lake Michigan Drive, and, again, it is the largest art-based competition in the world.

You could turn yourself in and save the rest of us the headache, but we’re not naive enough to believe that you will. But the next time that you feel the urge to express yourself, please do it in a way that doesn’t cost everyone else around you.