THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2008
NEWS
7A
NATIONAL
Revision to GI Bill enhances veterans'schooling benefits
BY HEATHER MELANSON editor@kansan.com
After Bruce Archambault served a year in Iraq in the Army, he returned home to Leavenworth and picked up a few odds and ends jobs.
He delivered pizza, changed oil and picked up trash for the city. Right before the fall 2005 semester began, Archambault saw a sign for school and decided he wanted a change.
"God, you know, I said, 'That'd be really nice,'" Archambault said. "I'm tired of getting other people's trash and maggots and human feces on me, basically, from when we go pick up the dumpsters at the water treatment plant. I don't want to do that for the rest of my life. I think it's time for me to go to school."
At the end of February, Senators Jim Webb, D-Va., John Warner, R-Va., Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., introduced to the Senate a revised version of the "Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act." This bill is a modern version of the Montgomery GI Bill and could make school more affordable for veterans like Archambault.
The revision would provide veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan with 36 months of benefits, including the cost of the most expensive public university in the state. It would also give veterans a monthly stipend that covers local housing expenses, according to a press release on Sen. Webb's Web site.
KU Assistant Registrar Joan Hahn helps veterans receive their benefits from the GI Bill and said extra money made available to veterans would be helpful.
The current GI Bill covers 36 months of school and veterans have to use the benefits within 10 years of leaving service.
"I know for a lot of students it still doesn't cover the full amount of their tuition and fees, and then they still have to get a job or take out a student loan because they still don't have enough money for them to live on," Hahn said.
According to a press release from Sen. Webb's Web site, the
revised bill is meant to give veterans benefits comparable to the aid that World War II veterans received when the original GI Bill of 1944 was issued.
During Spring 2004, a year after the Iraq war started, 268 veterans were receiving benefits from the Gl Bill at the Lawrence campus, said Betty Childers, the registrar's senior administrative representative and Veterans Affairs certifying official. This semester 231 veterans were registered, she said, which is about a 14 percent decrease. Recruiting operations officer for the KU Army ROTC department, Major Ted Culbertson, said the decrease in veteran registration might have been for different reasons, such as veterans had graduated, started a full-time career
or they could currently be deployed.
Culbertson said soldiers would be encouraged to use their education benefits if the University could offer fullpaid tuition and a monthly stipend because of this bill.
Tom Ferry, Saint Michael, Minn., junior, is a cadet in Army ROTC. Even though he hasn't served in Iraq or Afghanistan, he receives aid from the GI Bill. Ferry joined the National Guard, and in order to receive benefits from the GI Bill, he had to complete basic training and advanced individual training.
"I think a lot of the reason people join the military is to gain their educational benefits. It's a big part of why I did it," Ferry said. "I wanted to come out of school debt-free."
"You have the potential to give up your life for the nation. The least they can do is pay for your education."
"The least they can do is pay for your education."
According to the newspaper Army Times, the Bush administration is against this revised bill because it is worried soldiers would leave the military to use the improved benefits.
"You have the potential to give up your life for the nation," said Army ROTC Cadet Fran Glass.
Fifty senators and 111 representatives are cosponsoring the bill, which is bill number S.22 in the state senate and H.R. 2702 in the state house of representatives.
FRAN GLASS Army ROTC cadet
Jeremy Stohs, a legislative aide for first district Congressman Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said Moran was not a sponsor of the bill, but that he was concerned with improving benefits for the National Guard and Reserves, because some had been deployed multiple times since Sept. 11.
Thomas Seay, press secretary for second district Congresswoman Nancy Boyda, D-Kan., said Boyda supported the principles of the bill, but wasn't a sponsor of it.
Aside from the benefits the
revised bill could offer,
Archambault said he would also like to see an extension on the 36 months the bill covers.
Archambault doesn't have to take out loans because of benefits he receives from the bill.
"That's kind of what allows me to go to school, is that extra money." Archambault said. "Otherwise, I probably couldn't afford it."
If the bill passes, Archambault who is a junior, probably won't see the benefits that future veterans could gain. The Senate could vote on the bill this year, but it is still undetermined when specifically that vote will occur, according to the Army Times.
"I didn't even start getting my GI Bill until the second semester I'd been in school, because it really wasn't a big deal to me until I found out we get $700 a month," Archambault said.
Now, whenever Archambault is enrolled in school, he receives his GI Bill benefits.
"That's my mortgage payment every month," he said.
canted by matt mirscnteia
Millions of Americans already take the drug or one of its components, Zetia. But doctors were stunned to learn that Vytorin failed to improve heart disease even though it worked as intended to reduce three key risk factors.
Common drug ineffective in alleviating heart disease
"People need to turn back to statins," said Yale University cardiologist Dr. Harlan Krumholz, referring to Lipitor, Crestor and other widely used brands."We know that statins are good drugs.
CHICAGO — Leading doctors urged a return to older, tried-and-true treatments for high cholesterol after hearing full results Sunday of a failed trial of Vytorin.
We know that they reduce risks."
HEALTH
results.
The study was closely watched because Zetia and Vytorin have racked up $5 billion in sales despite limited proof of benefit. Two Congressional panels launched probes into why it took drugmakers nearly two years after the study's completion to release
Results were presented at an American College of Cardiology conference in Chicago Sunday and published on the Internet by the New England Journal of Medicine.
Associated Press
816 W 24' St
Lawrence, KS 66046
(785) 749-5750
www.zlblasma.com
and decoration only may be used. New devices please bring phone ID, proof of address, and Social Security Card to the location.
ZLB Plasma
O'Donnell said that a large number of turbines would likely be needed in order to save the University a noticeable amount of money, but he said he couldn't predict the exact number unless his company performed a proper analysis of the University's situation.
The biggest obstacle facing Students of Liberty would be getting the funding to pay the initial cost of the project, said Jeff Severin, director of the KU Center for Sustainability.
STUDENT SENATE
Coalition's platform hopes to employ wind turbines for a greener' campus
BY ANDY GREENHAW agreenhaw.kansan.com
One of Students of Liberty's biggest platforms is cutting student fees, which means that most, if not all of the funding, would have to come from the University itself.
Students of Liberty, a student coalition competing in this year's Student Senate election, has revealed its platform regarding building enough wind turbines to power one-third of the University.
Hyde said that he was fully aware of the challenges facing his coalition in this initiative.
Eric Hyde, vice presidential candidate for Students of Liberty, said his coalition's goal would help the University in becoming more environmentally conscious.
in Lawrence and the monthly amount the University pays for electricity.
"It would be an awfully ambitious goal, but somewhere between 10 to 20 percent would strike me as pretty doable," Adams said, referring to the how much of campus could be powered by the turbines.
"There would have to be a pretty major campaign to persuade the University to invest in something like that," Severin said.
At last week's Student Senate debate, Hyde cited Pratt Community College as an example of a campus that took on the same initiative.
According to Pratt Community College's Web site, it completed three EW-50 wind turbines last December.
"There's a green revolution happening right now all over the world," Hyde said. "The University of Kansas ought to be a leader in this new trend."
"One of the worst things you can have for 'greening' is politics mixed in with it," Hyde said at last week's Student Senate debate.
Kent Adams, vice president of finance and operations at Pratt Community College, said the three wind turbines provided about 465,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year, which powered about 25 percent of Pratt's campus.
Adams said Students of Liberty's plan was feasible, but expensive.
The project's initial cost was about $655,000, but Adams said it
William O'Donnell, marketing director at Integrity Wind Systems, said the University had no way to predict how many wind turbines the University would need, how much the project would cost or how much the project could save without assessing the wind speed
saved the campus about $46,700 per year. In 12 years, Pratt Community College will have saved enough to make back its initial investment, he said.
Each wind turbine costs $155,000, Adams said, and produced about 155,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.
One key difference between the University of Kansas and Pratt Community College is the amount of electricity each uses. Adams said Pratt Community College used an average of about 1,860,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year, which is about 1.7 percent of the 107.5 million kilowatt hours the Universit used last year, according to the KU facility operations annual report.
— Edited by Matt Hirschfeld
SCIENCE
SCIENCE DNA research advances genetic links to disease
NEW YORK — Scientists are scanning human DNA with a precision and scope once unthinkable and rapidly finding genes linked to cancer, arthritis, diabetes and other diseases.
It's a payoff from a landmark achievement completed five years ago — the identification of all the building blocks in the human DNA. Follow-up research
and leaps in DNA-scanning technology have opened the door to a flood of new reports about genetic links to disease.
On a single day in February, for example, three separate research groups reported finding several genetic variants tied to the risk of getting prostate cancer.
And over the past year or so, scientists have reported similar results for conditions ranging from heart attack to multiple sclerosis to gallstones. The
Interviews with scientists at the center of this revolution and a review of published studies over the past six months by the Associated Press make clear the rapid adoption of the new technology and the high expectations for it.
list even includes restless legs syndrome, a twitching condition best known as "jimmy legs" in an episode of "Seinfeld."
Associated Press
ask listen solve
SPRING BREAK.
SUMMER BROKE.
COLLEGE
SURVIVAL TIP
Sound familiar? Then you'll like the sound of this. When you use your KU Card, you're good to go. It can help you survive college. It's your ID linked directly to a KU Checking Account. It's totally free. Plus, you can use it at our on-campus branch. The KU Card — it's just the break you need.
KU CHECKING ACCOUNT
- Free Checking with free checks*
* and no minimum balance
- Free Commerce Gold Visa® Check Card
- Free Commerce ATM transactions (14 Commerce ATMs citywide)
- Free Online Account Access and Online Bill Pay