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and the press;
and to petition
HENDRICKS: On this day, Americans remember the attacks of Sept. 11,2001.Too often we forget the kindness we displayed afterward See kansan.com for more opinions and Free for All comments
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11,2006 WWW.KANSAN.COM
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other developed countries The United States ranked 16th out of 27 countries in graduating those between the ages of 18 to 24, according to the study. This is a dismal number with all the resources this country can provide.
Overpriced universities failing American students
With increases in tuition and the endless debt that engulfs students, it's no wonder fewer students are taking the college path.
Not only is the United States second-best in basketball these days, we have fallen in the ranks of higher education. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education's report released last week shows a decline in the number of young adults receiving college degrees, with the United States lagging behind other developed countries.
The report also graded the 50 states, and Kansas received a failing grade in the area of affordability. This comes during the University's five-year plan to more than double tuition rates.
In-state students taking 15 credit hours pay $4,824 a year while out-of-state students pay more than double that amount at $13,098. That price tag does not include the astronomical cost for textbooks, along with the cost of living.
The report noted that on average, one year at a public four-year university would cost a student's family 31 percent of its income.
In states that performed well, college completion numbers were still subpar. Less than 70 percent of students at four-year institutions finished a bachelor's degree within six years.
More than four years for an undergraduate degree has become the norm, even if the University has pledged to curb the number of students exceeding the four-year mark.
A study by the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that nearly half of recent college graduates have accumulated student loans, with an average student loan debt of $10,000. This explains why students are just as focused on finding a part or full-time job as they are on their studies. For a number of students, taking the necessary 15 hours a semester to graduate in four years just isn't an option.
Louis Mora for the editorial board
This trend could lead to the start of a generation of undereducated people. The United States and the state of Kansas should quit failing their students.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FREE FOR ALL
Call 864-0500
OPINION
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Standerous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
I think tearing down the goal posts should be a way of expression in everyday life. If you get a good parking spot, tear down the goal posts. If you get a good grade, tear down the goal posts
tear down the goal posts.
--beauty was hidden. This ad and feature promote premarital sex as a pleasurable game that has no serious consequence.
Whatever happened to the mini book bags? They were so cute and functional.
I wish someone would change our toilet paper in our bathroom from printer paper to Charmin. It is starting to hurt.
To the editor and the writer of the Crossing story: That is stupid. Why would you write a story about The Crossing serving underage
people
Anyone who roots for Ohio State must wear jean shorts.
Free for All, I'm trying to throw a party. The theme is Bass Pros and camouflage hoes. Do you think anyone will come?
To anyone looking for a good time on your way to class: Listen to some Dane Cook. It will spice up your walk.
5.3
Steve Irwin once beat Chuck Norris in a kickboxing tournament, but being such a gentleman, he let Norris keep the champion title.
I just want to say if that Sheigh kid holding up his license at The Crossing gets busted by the police, that will be the funniest thing ever.
beauty was hidden. This ad and feature promote premarital sex as a pleasurable game that has no serious consequence.
Free for All, what is up with the shaking of the keys during every kickoff? Please explain to me.
This Facebook crap keeps getting worse and worse.
I used to think Mark Zuckerberg was awesome. Now I think he is a douchebag.
KU is a secret prison.
I would just like to thank the kind person who lives at Chase Courts who turned in my wallet.
To the squirrel who got run over by a bike in front of Snow Hall today: Peace out, little buddy.
Dear person who spit on the Lewis elevator wall: Thanks a lot. I just leaned up against it.
--beauty was hidden. This ad and feature promote premarital sex as a pleasurable game that has no serious consequence.
beauty was hidden. This ad and feature promote premarital sex as a pleasurable game that has no serious consequence.
Facebook moving in wrong direction
》 GUEST COMMENTARY
For those of you who are not users of Facebook, the following will likely not be of much interest to you. For everyone else, I think we have something in common.
We hate the new Facebook.
On Sept. 5 Facebook introduced two new features to its Web site: News Feed and Mini-Feed. News Feed displays on your home page, the page you are taken to immediately after logging in. Among the things described on the News Feed are new friend requests, new group invitations, recent photo tags, and the like. This is essentially a more streamlined version of Facebook's previous notification system and a novel (and fairly well-designed) improvement.
Mini-Feed is a different story.
Mini-Feed shows up on your Facebook profile and displays your most recent Facebook actions to anyone who views your profile. Information displayed here includes notes that you've left, photos you've been tagged in, your new friend requests, any changes to your profile and the like.
Although much of this information was visible before, it has never been consolidated in a single location. Profiles only displayed "last updated" information, not pointing out which information had been changed. Friends were viewable by "network," but it was not before possible to track friend updates. Now, everything you do or change is catalogued and displayed for anyone to see.
We've all done it: read someone's profile multiple times in one day, gone through someone's entire photo album, read someone's entire wall, or gone through someone's list of friends. Wed joke about Facebook Stalking and obsessive addiction to Facebook.
In short, Facebook has become Stalker Central.
We were harmless.
The introduction of Mini-Feed introduces a very shady, very dangerous aspect to the Facebook community. Where we once had safety we now have doubt. Who is reading our profile? Who is paying a little too much attention to what we've been saying, doing or changing?
In short, Facebook has made a grave and unsettling mistake.
The outlash speaks for itself. In the space of a few days, massive online groups, petitions, and other forms of community action have spread like wildfire. My own status reads "Craig is hating the new Facebook." People I never speak to write on my wall just to agree with me.
When notified by Matt Newsome, senior at American University in Washington, D.C., that the new Mini-Feed feature was not being well-received by his peers, Facebook issued an official response. Although the company understands that "some people are unhappy or concerned about the recent changes to Facebook," the letter reinforces the company's decision by describing the Mini-Feed as a way "to make it easier than ever before to see interesting, relevant pieces of information from the world around you."
Unfortunately, having all this "relevant" information available at a mouse-click means that anyone can easily track your activity on the Web site.
In short, the issue boils down to this: There are little tiny "x's" that can make this feature moot. No one is making you use Facebook or perform actions that are routinely cataloged. Laziness or the otherwise unwillingness to circumnavigate this new feature could potentially increase the chance for unwanted data to be distributed to your peers
— but anyone who is actually Facebook-stalking you is probably going to do so regardless of whether you make it easy or difficult.
I'm disappointed in the new Facebook (in fact, I hate it) but I realize that I have — and have always had — the ability to control my own exposure on this Web site. When this right disappears, Facebook will have gone a step too far.
Facebook may not have broken any laws, but it has broken our trust. Shame on you, Facebook. Shame on you.
But in this case, I find it safe (though perhaps also regrettable) to say that Facebook has merely made a mistake in reading its users' expectations. There is no constitutionally-granted right to Ultimate Facebook Privacy.
Craig Paschang Stilwell senior
Lessons of 9/11 aftermath too easily forgotten
COMMENTARY
BY EMILY HENDRICKS
KANSAN COLUMNIST
OPINION@KANSAN.COM
On this day five years ago, everybody knew what was happening would affect the world forever. Five years later, I think we tend to remember the events of September 11 more than we remember the lessons we learned from it.
I'm going to venture a guess that most people at the University of Kansas weren't touched directly by the attacks, and that like most Midwesterners we saw their effects mostly through the way people acted. All of a sudden people were nice. They smiled at random strangers on the street, said hi to people when they passed them. Church attendance shot up, and people spent more quality time with their families.
My question is this: Why do we need a huge disaster to remind us how important people are? We should be trying every day to make meaningful connections with family, friends, roommates, co-workers and professors. I'm not saying that everybody should like everybody else, nor am I promoting universal hipie love.
I'm just asking you to think about how many times you've walked down Jayhawk Boulevard with your iPod on, your head down and not looked at a single person on the way to class. How many times have you ducked out of your dorm/apartment quickly so you didn't have to say anything to your roommate? We're all guilty of it.
Those little things make a big difference in other people's lives as well as yours. Don't take people for granted. Go out there and make someone smile today.
As we all do our duty as Americans today by reflecting, include in your Sept. 11 musings a thought or two about how you could connect better with those around you. Do you actually know the name of the person you always sit near in your econ class? Try talking with the person. Do you always walk straight past the guy mopping up the nasty floor in your residence hall? Ask him how his day's going.
Hendricks is an Overland Park sophomore in English and journalism.
GUEST COMMENTARY
sexual advertising harms human dignity
Friday, an ad ran in The Kansan that pictured the buns and (rather attractive) legs of a young woman. Nothing but the skimpy laced blinki covered her. The ad promoted The Kansan feature "Sex on the Hill" and the slogan read, "We Mount Oread," (Ha. Clever!)
Sex sells ... and it seems that The Kansan has fully embraced this successful marketing concept. The fact that my column starts with the word "sex" will most likely draw more readers.
The Kansan is the student voice of KU. Although the first amendment protects its right to write about (and picture) such vulgarities, it makes me wonder why The Kansan chooses to do so.
The message that the paper is sending is that the degradation of our bodies is normal and acceptable. The woman's face in this ad was cropped out. Much of her true
Although the ad was rather creative and well designed, it made my heart sink.
Our University and our culture have come to believe that sexual indulgence is a right. At the same time, however, we wonder why rape, molestation, abortion, STDs, divorce, pedophilia, adultery and poor self-image are so prevalent.
Some even go as far as to say that suppression of sexual desires is unhealthy. Yet, if that is true, what
separates us from animals who have unrestrained sexual license? Our ability to suppress pleasure for a later, more beneficial pleasure is what makes us human.
Our human dignity is compromised each time a message appears that suggests sexual promiscuity. The woman in that ad deserves more respect than the ad gives her.
In praise of The Kansan, Sex on the Hill always includes a story about chastity or premarital purity. I look forward to reading that article.
If the paper keeps promoting distasteful sexual advertising, it helps condition our community to see each other solely in terms of physical qualities. However, if the paper would choose not to promote sex so vigorously, we could create an atmosphere of self-respect and true sexual joy.
each year.
Jessica Wicks Colorado Springs senior
》 TALK TO US
Jonathan Kealing, editor 864-4854 or jkealing@kansan.com
Erick R. Schmidt, managing editor
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864-4924 or druigh@kansan.com
Gabriella Souza, managing editor
884-4654 or souza@kanaan.com
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664-4014 or khoedl@kansan.com
Frank Tax3.ard opinion editor
804-4824 or ftankard@kansan.com
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884-4462 or lshirak@kansan.com
Melomol Gibson, general manager, news adviser
874-7687 or mgbson@karenen.com
》 SUBMISSIONS
Jennifer Weaver, sales and marketing adviser
864-7885 or jweaver@kansan.com
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editor and guest columns submitted by students, faculty and alumni.
The Kansen reserves the right to edit, cut to length, or reject all submissions.
For any questions, call Frank Tankard or Dave Rulgh at 864-4810 or e-mail opinion@kansan.com.
General questions should be directed to the editor at editor@kansan.com
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