4A
Wednesday, February 8, 1995
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: UNIVERSITY-WIDE FEE
Proposed fee has ulterior motives
Many departments at the University of Kansas are lacking the equipment necessary for a productive education. Students should not have to wait in long lines to use lab equipment or rearrange their schedules to fit in computer time. But how should these changes be paid for?
A University-wide fee , an idea which the University is considering, would be a sleazy political tool to get around increasing tuition. If all students would have to pay the fee, then the University should seriously consider raising the tuition rate instead. This should not turn into another situation where the University can stand back and commend itself for having one of the country's lowest tuition rates. If improvements are needed to enhance students' educations, then the University should have the courage to raise the tuition and not hide behind a nameless fee. Students should know up-front what their education will cost. They shouldn't come to a university and have hundreds of dollars in unexplained fees sprung upon them.
KU students might appreciate an honest tuition hike more than a vague fee aimed at keeping tuition low.
The political jargon at KU needs to stop. If a tuition increase is necessary to get a quality education, then the decision makers need to be honest about it. Don't just give the students another fee to pay next semester.
JENNY WIEDEKE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
THE ISSUE: QUALIFIED ADMISSIONS
Qualified admissions needed
The Board of Regents and the Legislature need to work together to implement some system of qualified admissions for state universities.
Year after year the topic is discussed and debated and then turned down, largely on the premise that everyone deserves a chance to go to college.
A qualified-admissions policy does not have to mean that everyone does not get to go to college. One system that has worked well and has improved the quality of education in North Carolina and Michigan is the multi-tiered system.
This system consists of a flagship institution, which has the highest admission requirements, and different tiers of schools below the flagship, each with different standards of admission.
If a student cannot qualify for the flagship institution, then he or she can attend one of the other schools better suited to their capabilities.
This allows the flagship institution the economic freedom and the logistic capability to educate at the highest level. The premier examples are the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. These flagship institutions are nationally recognized as
Multi-tiered system would allow everyone to attend a college but would establish admission standards
excellent schools, and Kansas loses potentially great students every year because some of the college-rating systems rank our schools lower simply because of the open admissions policy.
Several schools and departments at KU have taken steps to alleviate this problem.
The schools of business, engineering, architecture, journalism, nursing and pharmacy and the department of psychology, within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, all have independent admissions policies.
Because neither the Regents nor the Legislature feel compelled to address this issue, the independent schools have been forced to qualify their students to maintain high academic standards of achievement.
Schools cannot afford to admit everyone and provide everyone with a quality education. Although the issue is not currently on the Regents' agenda, the Legislature needs to address the situation and rectify it.
CHRIS VINE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
STEPHEN MARTINO
Editor
DENISE NEIL
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
News...Carlos Tolade
Planning...Mark Martin
Editorial...Matt Gowen
Associate Editorial...Heather Lawrentz
Campus...David Wilson
Colleen McCain
Sports...Gerry Fey
Associate Sports...Ashley Miller
Photo...Jarrett Lane
Features...Nathan Olanon
Design...Brian James
Freelance...Susan White
JENNIFER PERRIER
Business manager
MARK MASTRO
Retail sales manager
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH
Technology coordinator
Business Staff
Michael Paul / KANSAN
Campus mgr ... Beth Pois
Regional mgr ... Chris Bramanman
National mgr ... Shelly Felavite
Coop mgr ... Kelly Comelyne
Special Sections mgr ... Brigit Bloomquist
Production mgrs ... JJ Cook
Kim Hyman
Marketing director ... Mindy Blum
Promotions director .. Justin Frosolone
Creative director .. Den Gier
Classified mgr ... Lisa Kulseth
Minimum wage: it's not just for kids, part-timers anymore
The threat of job losses is more abstract than the facts of existence for the nation's lowest-wage earners. You've had a taste of this existence, albeit it with fewer responsibilities because of your parents. And it still sucked.
You know the minimum wage.
You've flipped burgers, bagged groceries or clerked at a Conoco.
You've seen the minimum wage, and it sucks.
Keep this in mind during the upcoming minimum wage debate. Last week, President Bill Clinton proposed raising the wage by 90 cents throughout the next few years. Republicans responded with their usual warmth to Clinton proposals: House Majority Leader Dick Arney vowed to fight the hike "with every fiber of my being."
Don't let your policy makers forget it.
Arney was following the advice of (often conservative) economists who think that raising the minimum wage causes a big loss in job openings for unskilled workers. Some politicians and their economic advisers even propose abolishing the minimum wage completely.
Others economists, usually liberals less enamored with the beneficence of the unrestrained market, think that the economic benefits of equalizing buying power and the morale boon of slightly leveling income distribution counter the initial job losses resulting from minimum wage hikes.
While politicians debate in Washington, both persuasions of economist debate the minimum wage in journals, using words like "stochastic" and "econometric" almost as much as People uses "O.J." and "Nicole." So it's
Who would a rise in the minimum wage effect? It's a grave error to think that the minimum wage is just for teen-agers and part-timers. Forty percent of minimum wage earners are adults who contribute more than half of their family's income. These people aren't working because it's optional. They're the working poor — not vagrants or drug dealers or welfare recipients. We ought to assure them a wage that is enough to live on. They work a full week, every week, and still come in far below the poverty line.
STAFF COLUMNIST
not surprising that
I don't understand
all of the technical
arguments about
the minimum
wage, and I don't
think I'm alone.
cent loss of buying power. Clinton's request is only a 21 percent raise and because of inflation during the two years of the gradual increase, it would be even less of an increase when it reached workers. Probably it would be more like a 15 percent to 18 percent increase after inflation, little more than half of what's been lost since 1979.
And even if I did understand the fine-grained analysis, so what? The *E con o m i s t* reports that although many economists have been lowering
their estimates of the damage that would be caused by minimum wage increases, there's still a complete and glaring lack of consensus.
The real purchasing power of the minimum wage has dropped 30 percent since 1979.
So although projections and models fail to give an answer, a few simple facts can illuminate the context of the debate and tell what a rise in wages would mean to workers.
That's a fact — period. No debate. Inflation outran increases in the wage, by a lot. People making the minimum wage at full-time employment aren't even close to the poverty line anymore, and they're not getting any closer.
Even if Clinton's full 90-cent request passes, it wouldn't recoup the 30 per cent.
Chris Reedy is a Topeka junior in English and philosophy.
Humor has no place in death penalty issue
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Michael Paul's column in the Jan.
26 Kansan was the most offensive
one I have read about the legalization
of the death penalty in Kansas.
Paul's twisted attempt at humor was inappropriate for this very serious issue. The taking of a life by the state is a last resort and is not done without careful consideration of the crime, the criminal's record and any mitigating circumstances of his situation.
Paul suggested that the death penalty represents "the trivialization of the death of another human being." If he would care to see a better example of pointless death, I am willing to share with him the court papers detailing how my mother was shot and killed in our home, nine years ago.
crime cannot accurately be measured, it is 100 percent effective at stopping repeat offenses. It is also considerably less expensive to us taxpayers than a sentence of life in prison.
While the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent to
I am grateful to the state government and the attorney general of Texas for utilizing the death penalty. As long as truly heinous crimes occur, capital punishment continues to have a place in our sad society.
Amy Grammer San Antonio, Texas graduate student
I feel that Chris Hampton's essay concerning racism in the South is not only a narrow viewpoint but actually an ignorant presumption.
Ignorance-bred racism is not limited to South
I am a proud Southerner who was
born and raised in Tennessee until I moved to Lawrence five years ago to attend the University of Kansas. I do agree that prejudice is still alive, but it exists everywhere, including Kansas.
I have experienced a greater amount of racism within the past five years in the Midwest than I ever did in my previous 18 years in the South. I do not blame this on the location but on the intolerant people I have come across. Ms. Hampton, perhaps you never thought to think of the obvious? Prejudice breeds in ignorance, not in a particular geographic location. Your article only adds to the incorrect generalities given to the South by people that do not know better.
If you would open your eyes and listen a bit closer, I promise you would be shocked by the prejudices that surround us in any city or country in the world. Lawrence is a wonderful city to live in, but I do not think it is quite the "tolerant atmosphere" that you believe.
Andrea Brener
Chattanooga, Tenn., senior
Relationship with roommate is like marital commitment
In all my anticipation for college, I saw a lot of possibilities. Real, life-changing events from new friendships to career choices.
But now marriage? Not with another guy.
Yet, how else can I explain my roommate?
And in walks my roommate.
Let's take this scenario. It's late one night and after a long day of classes I decided to play a rousing card game of "Magic" with my friend. So basically, we have two guys playing cards, guzzling Cokes and having a good time.
"You know I've been noticing that the trash has been piling up, and you're not emptying it out," he said. "You know it's a two-way street. I just don't think you're appreciating..."
My first thoughts were, "When did I get engaged? Where is my wedding band?"
And in the late evening hours, who else but my roommate do I tell how my day went.
Everyday people ask how my roommate is. I'm tempted to say, "Well, the missus is just fine."
It's strange to look at it that way, but when you think about it, in the past semester — in my whole life — my roommate has been the one person I've made the longest commitment to outside of my own family.
I don't know how many times I've found a need to tell my roommate where I'm going or when I'll get in. When something goes wrong, he's the first to find out.
Whenever I'm feeling down, it's my roommate who asks, "So, what's wrong?" And there are mornings when I come back from class to find my roommate still sleeping. And that's when I wake him with a booming, "Hi honey, I'm home."
And all doubt that I was a married man disappeared when I went grocery shopping with my better half. While I was in excruciating pain about the price of a case of Coke, he went on a mad spending spree. Then we got into a heated debate about orange juice, which I had no problem buying. It was the extra buck for his favorite brand that I had a problem with.
The embarrassing part was that there were married couples walking by laughing at us.
Now I don't want to give the wrong impression of our relationship. I think we are a pretty good match.
On my floor, we've already had some couples get divorces, and a friend of mine is experiencing a dry spell in her relationship with her roommate.
That makes me appreciate what my roommate and I have, which is a pretty decent friendship. And however random the selection may have been that put us together, I really have come to appreciate it.
The secret to being a successful spouse/roommate, as cliche as it sounds, is communication.
Now I put a little more effort into taking out the trash and keeping my half of the room a little neater, and we get along pretty well. But now and then, I get a little jealous when my roommate goes out on date.
Rufus Coleman is a Dallas freshman in journalism.
HUBIE
By Greg Hardin