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THURSDAY,OCTOBER19,2006 WWW.KANSAN.COM
MYERS: Tuition increases every year, but the money is well-spent. Next time you complain, remember the remodeled dorms and other recent improvements. See kansan.com for more opinions and Free for All comments
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
PAGE 7A
> OUR VIEW
Love him or hate him, Perkins a success
The dust has settled and the men's basketball and football teams are now handcuffed with sanctions imposed by the NCAA Committee on Infractions following its investigation.
Little good was discovered from the investigation, but one thing can be said: The Athletics Department and director Lew Perkins took progressive measures in cleaning up what could have been a disastrous mess.
Perkins took the initiative when he arrived at the University in June 2003 to clean up the mess left by Al Bohl, the previous athletics director. Self-reporting violations and conducting a two-year internal investigation into violations by teams in the department prevented damage to the University's image as a topnotch program that doesn't have to circumvent the rules to win.
The department is now under the watchful eye of the NCAA, and the possibility of even stiffer penalties, such as the exclusion of our beloved Jayhawks from the NCAA tournament, is possible with further rules violations. A March without the Jayhawks would be like a duck without water. Perkins up-front approach with the NCAA may just have prevented such a punishment.
Like him or not, Perkins and his actions saved the integrity of the athletics program.
Louis Mora for the editorial board.
Perkins, previously at the University of Connecticut, has stepped on some toes during his three-year tenure. He upset some of the University's long-time basketball season-ticket holders when he implemented the new points structure for coveted tickets. Trying to dig more money from wealthy donors, Perkins upset some of the most loyal Jayhawk fans, who could no longer afford the astronomical cost to retain their tickets. He has ruffled a few feathers with new methods to extract money from loyal alumni, but he has brought integrity back to a department that was obviously lacking under the Bohl regime.
The internal investigation, which ended in July 2005, resulted in the loss of scholarships for both the football and women's basketball programs, and shed light on the gifts violations of the men's basketball team. The self-imposed measures taken by Perkins and Chancellor Robert Hemenway probably lightened the blow delivered by the NCAA last weekend.
Grant Snider/KANSAN
COMMENTARY
At KU, you get what you pay for
In the midst of the constant furore over the rising costs of health care in the United States, New York Times economics columnist David Leonhardt recently pointed out that we pay more because we receive more. Families in the 1950s paid less money for health care because they received much less. Today, we understand more about the causes and treatments of heart disease, cancer, and various other ailments. The increased quality of health care has led to an increase in life expectancy of 10 years. In health care, you get what you pay for.
That seems like a basic concept. As the quality of a good increases, its costs increase, the demand increases, and the price increases. So price is related to quality.
I point these things out because we're in the middle of a similar uproar over the rising costs of university tuition. The Kansan reported in September that tuition at the University has increased between 10 and 17 percent each year since 2002. Across the nation, the median increase in tuition at public universities between 2005 and 2006 was 6.4 percent.
In analyzing these statistics, too many have come to the conclusion that these price increases are predatory in nature. An editorial in the Kansan reported that "universities are simply taking advantage of a favorable situation ... The University must ensure that it stops getting caught up in the culture of yearly increases currently afflicting universities nationwide."
Are universities really taking
BY VINCE MYERS
KANSAN COLUMNIST
OPINION@KANSAN.COM
advantage of students? For what purpose? There is no university CEO benefiting from higher profits as we might see in the business world. The chancellor's contract is set by the Board of Regents; he isn't skimming off the top of our tuition dollars. The revenue from our tuition — $160 million — isn't even the main source of income for the University; that would be money granted by the Kansas government, totaling $240 million. So it's difficult to make the case that we're being taken advantage of by the University.
The reason, of course, is that we're getting what we pay for. The value of a university degree is more important today than it has been in the past. In 2003, the College Board reported that the lifetime earnings gap between someone with a high school diploma and someone with a bachelor's degree was over $1 million.
So, is the increase just a result of being caught up in a "culture of yearly increases?" I doubt that partaking in a higher-education fad is the true motivation for increasing tuition. Certainly there must be a substantive reason for the University to raise tuition.
the University has made improvements to the quality and atmosphere around campus. It has renovated four of our dorms over the past decade, and technology has been improved in classrooms, laboratories and libraries. More funds have been allocated to compensate graduate teaching and research assistants. And, even though many say that increased tuition is pricing poorer Kansans out of college, much of the increased tuition has gone to need-based financial aid. In addition, the University has to continue to be able to compete with other universities for distinguished professors to continue to improve the reputation of the University. Without tuition increases, the quality of our education would fall.
Beyond the value of a degree,
Of course, none of this is to say that we shouldn't watch what the University does with our money. Let's not forget how it spent $90,000 to add a tail to the letter "K." Still, the University is, by and large, using our money to better our education, which is what we should expect.
The reason most of the University's students are here, rather than somewhere like Fort Hays State (no offense to the Tigers), is that it is a more highly-regarded university. The University maintains that reputation by constantly making improvements, and it can afford to make improvements by increasing tuition. It's not ideal, but it's better than the alternative.
Myers is a Olathe junior in economics.
GUEST COMMENTARY
Media wrong to focus on war issues at home more important
I have often criticized the news media over the last few years for a number of transgressions, from the war reporting from the Middle East to coverage of domestic social issues right here at home. To my mind, the perspectives, intelligence and motives of national news reporters and editors are at best skewed, and at worst, just plain crazy.
Lately, I've begun to wonder if maybe I've been too harsh, that maybe it's my perspective that has been a bit off. Maybe it is just me. After all, maybe we should see screaming headlines and tens of thousands of column inches written every day in our newspapers about the deprivation and hopelessness of the Iraq War, which kills about 750 Americans a year, while news of the latest fatalities from drunken driving, which kills 20,000 Americans a year, are relegated to page twenty-six, if they're even reported at ten. Is there some strange logic at work here that I don't understand?
Yes, you read that right. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, about 20,000 Americans die annually at the hands of drunk drivers. That's over 25 dead bodies, right here at home, for every soldier killed in the Middle East.
Can't be right, you say. It is, and it doesn't stop there. Take heart disease, the number-one killer in America. Heart attacks and strokes kill some 600,000 Americans every year. Now we're up to 800 times the number of people killed in the War on Terror. What about cancer? It only kills tens of thousands. Do you know how far down the health and accident statistics you
Don't try to tell me that war is more senseless than drunk driving, or for that matter, more preventable. It's not. If anything, it's more preventable. So, the question is, why do our newspaper editors keep crowding out other stories, and more important issues — issues that we could do a lot about — to focus on the war?
In the meantime, I think I'll just hold on to my view about newspaper editors. When you take time to look at facts, my perspective seems just fine.
Scott M. Stone, Alumnus Chesterfield, MO
FREE FOR ALL
Call 864-0500
Presumably, war is so terrible because of the death and destruction it causes American families. If our hang-up is dead bodies, why aren't we 25 times more hung up about drunken driving? Or cancer? Or, for that matter, why aren't there as many editorials calling for an end to private swimming pools as there are about the Iraq War?
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansas editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls
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have to go, just to get to something that's comparable to our 750 war deaths? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that's roughly the number of children under the age of 14 who die each year in accidental drowning incidents in family hot tubs, swimming pools and bathhubs.
Graduate students want their vote back—now.
Chris Brower should be fired.
My girlfriend just said, "I feel like I'm going to vomit up cheese".
Clearly, the best way to get published in Free for All is to say your comment won't get published. This still won't get pub-
ing to read Free for All.
I do not intend to make light of the War on Terror any more than I would make light of children drowning. The point here is to ask if anyone reading this realized that children drowning is just as big of an issue as the war, assuming that dead bodies are your primary criteria.
I recently observed Santa Claus and the Green Giant must be from the same area because they speak
ing to read Free for All.
To the guy I met at The Hawk:
Do you live in Iowa or on Iowa?
I don't have a girlfriend, I don't have a job, and I don't have any money, but I wake up every morn- as soon Free for All.
I had a dream that Baby Jay and
I made love. What is wrong with me?
The comment in the Free for All about The Hawk and freshmen is absolutely true. I should know, I'm 19 and I drink there all the time.
Happy Birthday, Kelly.
I am never sitting on Wescoe to study again because some guy with a cigarette just ashed all over
me
What is the only way to stop a giant, stone Abraham Lincoln? A giant, stone John Wilkes Booth.
name the Kansan will not print guest columns that attack a reporter or another collumnist.
Happy Birthday, Kelly. Love,
your fourth-floor whores.
I made it into the Free for All on
the first try. Jealous?
The Lied Center ticket office has the coolest people ever.
Hey best friend: You pick up boys like lint.
Is there any reason why 14th street isn't open anymore?
My girlfriend just got her car.
Warning to all KU students: Stay off the road for the current time.
When did Lawrence turn into the ghetti?
name the Kansan will not print guest columns that attack a reporter or another collumnist.
Abe Lincoln wasn't a bad man. It was his mole.
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EDITORIAL BOARD
Jonathan Kealing, Erick R. Schmidt, Gabriella Souza, Frank Tankard, Dave Ruigh, Steve Lynn, McKay Stangler and Louis Mora
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