The editor in chief of the student newspaper at the University of Missouri-St. Louis this morning made an appeal to the student government to reverse a decision to cut funding for the newspaper.

Without funding from student activity fees, The Current may be forced to cease publication, said the editor, Sharon Pruitt, 24, a senior English major from Spanish Lake. The Current has been published weekly during the academic year, roughly 31 issues per year, since 1966.

The student activities budget committee was upset that the paper had racked up a debt of nearly $40,000.

The student journalists acknowledged that the paper had been mismanaged by previous staffers, but pointed to their efforts to cut costs and increase revenues to reduce the debt by half, during a time when their funding from student fees has also been sharply cut. The staff requested $29,000 for next year, after receiving $19,000 this year.

"We figured out how to do this now," advertising director Cate Marquis said.