“I actually think the students ought to be angry about the fee increase proposal,” Mark Yudof said during his speech proposing a $585 mid-year tuition increase at the UC Regents meeting on Sept. 16, 2009.
Don’t worry, Mr. Yudof. We are.
Since I arrived in Brazil to study abroad, locals have asked me about the education system in the United States and specifically the UC system. As an education reform activist and a tuition abolitionist, talking about this subject is easy. However, it has not been easy to explain the concept of student debt and the reasons our public university system is not truly public.
This February, UC Irvine lost an esteemed professor. After his passing, Dr. Richard Kroll was lauded by colleagues and students alike for not only his excellence as an educator but also for his dedication to the written word. Professor Kroll's influential reputation also stems from one of the hallmarks of his teaching: tough-love grading that awarded student work with realistic grades, often to the dismay of surprised students.
It's tax season, so it's once again time to try and cook the books enough to get a little extra beer money from that return. Some of the most important tools that students have in their tax arsenal are the various educational deductions and tax credits, capable of wiping out most of the tax liabilities that we impoverished academicians carry around.
In a 2002 Newsweek article entitled "Adultolescents," studies showed that an increasing number of Americans in their 20s and 30s are still financially supported by their parents. In most cases, this new breed of young adults consists of recent college graduates who have decided to move back home with mom and dad.
The financial foundations of our nation are crumbling under the weight of mismanagement and the global fiscal crisis. Thank goodness for that college degree, right? Not so fast.
Have you heard? The Democratic Party has split into two: the Clintonites and the Barackers. The Clintonites consist mostly of people without a college education, Catholics, white women, regular church attendees, union members and those "blue-collar workers" with whom she loves to drink beer. The Barackers are those who curse Hillary Clinton for sticking Barack Obama in two parallel universes: first, in the final primaries against Clinton, and then in the battleground states against John McCain. Meanwhile, the Republicans have proven how smart they are by keeping with tradition.
Lying and sneakiness is more than just accepted—it has become expected in our everyday lives. It has also become a social norm on our U.S. college campuses.
