OPINION
7A
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2008
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
COMMENTARY
"The government seems to really care for me if it is asking for tuition relief and trying to force the colleges to do so. However, I'm always skeptical about the government. If it wants to help a student like me, why doesn't it stop decreasing my Federal Pell Grant?"
Max Rinkel
Who should help pay for college?
Little do I know that as I walk to class, I am just a pawn stuck in the middle of a battlefield. The battle is that of government wanting to stick its paws in the college endowment business and the state higher education officials retaliating by swiping them away.
Not only am I stuck in the middle, but I am torn.
On a normal school day, I get assigned loads of homework by my professors and teachers who expect the best from me, and I have the desire to live up to those expectations.
However, to make a living here in Lawrence, I have to work 25 to 30 hours a week at Mr. Goodcocks so that I can pay rent, live at least a little comfortably and try to put a dent in my debt to two credit cards. The only reason I'm in debt is because of book costs and car repairs.
Seeing how my federal Pell Grant amount is decreasing every year, as well as a sufficient amount of loan money, my debt is only going to drastically increase when I graduate. In the little meantime that I get, I like to party at least a little bit.
I think I deserve it.
On Feb. 18, the Lawrence Journal-World published an article about the government's desire to become more involved in the college endowment business. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) propose that university endowments pay out 5 percent of their assets each year.
How is that for party cooperation?
According to the article, endowments — funds that are donated to support a university — increased by 18 percent in 2007. The article continues to state that tuition has gone up as well as college presidents' salaries.
In the article, Grassley says, "It's fair to ask whether a college kid should have to wash dishes in the dining hall to pay his tuition when his college has a billion dollars in the bank."
While I read all this, it all looks good for a student like me. The government seems to really care for me if it is asking for tuition relief and trying to force the colleges to do so. However, I'm always skeptical about the government. If it wants to help a student like me, why doesn't it stop decreasing my Federal Pell Grant? It makes me wonder if the government may have ulterior motives.
On Feb. 13, The University Daily Kansan published a similar article with more representation from the KU Endowment Association. In the article, Dale Seuferling, the president of the KU Endowment Association, said "a federal regulation on the management of private endowments and mandating policies on what private donors contribute and they entrust to the Endowment Association, who they expect to carry out their wishes, would be
an unprecedented and unnecessary intrusion"
I couldn't agree more. I believe the government should keep its hands out of this business. The only reason I believe it wants to is because it sees a potential profit.
This article continues, saying that last fall a rumor was circulating that a new federal bill would force universities that had more than $500 million in their endowments to use 5 percent of those funds each year. If the university refused, the federal government would begin taxing those funds.
While it's only a rumor, it's easy to see why the government would want to get involved, which Snoop Dogg can explain is to "make money, money, make money, money!"
Still, tuition has risen in many colleges, including the University of Kansas. In The Kansan's article, Seuferling said he understood the government's concern about the rising cost of tuition, but he said each university would be a better judge of how to use its endowed funds. The university may be a better judge for
the school, but certainly not for the students.
Seuferling said the association used to spend 5 percent of its funds, but after the past four years, it decreased the amount to 4.6 percent because of the dramatic change in the market. The students are also reacting to this dramatic change in the market. It doesn't help the common student that he or she has to pay $3 a gallon for gas, work more hours to pay off his or her debts and grow accustomed to a rise in tuition.
It doesn't help me that when I do graduate from this fine university (and I am proud to be a Jiahawk) that I will venture into my future as a stress-induced freak from all my debt, and I'll have to live with bad eating habits, resorting to the McDonald's Dollar Menu, and possibly die from a heart attack before the age of 40.
Brown is a Lee's Summit, Mo., junior in journalism.
Childhood nostalgia inspires trip down Rainbow Road
COMMENTARY
I'm young on the outside but getting progressively older on the inside. As the years pass by, new technologies and forms of entertainment emerge, but being the creature of habit that I am, I can't let go of those things I loved growing up.
I'm beginning to feel like an old person.
For example, I will never buy a
Wii. It's just too advanced. It's like alien technology or something. No sir, no Wiis for me. I'm sticking to Mario Kart and Aladdin on my Super Nintendo. Never was there a better Rainbow Road level than in the Super Nintendo version. Great soundtrack that game had.
Getting squarer shouldn't have such a negative connotation. We all can't be young forever. Imagine if there were 40-year-old dry humpining in the boom-boom room at The Hawk. Disturbing enough as it is, people think that because it's dark in there that they're invisible or something.
But the real question is: Is becoming a square a bad thing? After all, doesn't the saying go that "it's hip to be square"?
For example, Rocko's Modern Life, what a phenomenal show. I mean, Spunky, Rocko's dog, is probably one of the best characters in television history. Just the way his legs stick up in the air when he sits is so endearing. And Hefer, what a looney that cow is. No one can forget Filburt, the nerdy turtle that provides an endless amount of subtle comic relief. It's genius, I say, genius.
The point is that eventually we are all going to grow up and become behind the times, and there's nothing we can do about it. So why not enjoy these old things that have defined us as we've gotten older?
There was a Rocko marathon on the other day on the Nickton channel, and I watched it all day. It was awesome.
While watching, I just couldn't help thinking about when I was little and I used to loath watching TV with my dad, because he was always watching old black-and-white westerns and war movies.
Will Rocko, someday, seem as ancient as those old films? Are my kids going to be so bored watching TV with me that they'll say, "Jeez Mom, I don't wanna watch Rocko. That show's weird."
But now I've realized the "squareness" has gone beyond technology. I have trouble trying new restaurants. Never have I been more able to relate to my grandparents (who eat at Hardee's and Applebee's religiously).
They're so good. I never get ice cream from anywhere else. I've ordered a Wendy's frosty my whole life, and they do more than suffice.
Will I ever move past a Wendy's frosty?
Maybe finding joy in familiarity and routine are hidden innate traits of human behavior as we age. Therefore, I am just progressing along the normal path of humanity and to maintain that humanity I must continue to indulge in Wendy's, watch old cartoons and play only Super Nintendo. Call me square, but the past is just too good to let go.
Simmermon is a Leawood senior in journalism.
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