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Wednesday, April 25, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuition increase
As the price of higher education continues to rise, students deserve more services from universities
As certain as death and taxes, the Board of Regents has proposed another tuition increase. This time around, the Regent wants to hit up resident students for an additional 6 percent, from $613 to $649.78. Nonresident tuition would increase from $2,175 to $2.393.
Add the University of Kansas to the list of universities that annually ask for and receive more money from students. As the price goes up, however, so does the student-teacher ratio and overcrowding in classes. The only things that decrease are the number of available classes and student services, such as library hours and Watkins service hours. The Regents are telling students to pay more for less.
Even more exasperating, the Regents expect the students to like it. "I know it is a little painful, but what you pay for you appreciate more," said Regent Rick Harmon. He obviously has no grasp of the problem and has chosen to use clever platitudes to cover up his ignorance.
What is painful for students is going deeper into debt to pay for an education that rapidly is becoming more expensive and possibly lower in quality.
Many students across the country are begin
nung to rebel against skyrocketing education costs and spiraling returns on their investment. Students at Pacific Lutheran, Arizona State, Syracuse and Rutgers universities and the universities of Miami, Michigan and Massachusetts, to name a few, have protested against tuition increases at their schools. At Wesleyan University in Connecticut, a group protesting tuition increases firebombed the office of the president.
These actions only serve to underscore the importance of tuition increases. Federal financial aid has decreased in almost all categories with no compulsate increase in aid from the private sector. Students are faced with the stark prospect of higher tuition and less aid with which to pay it. Many students, most of them of the categories that universities recruit, will be priced out of the market and forced to leave school.
The Regents must recognize that students will not put up with increased tuition costs without an increase in student and educational services. They might even accept an increase if services were to remain the same. However, they cannot condone slashing services with one hand as the other writes out more bills.
Daniel Niemi for the editorial board
Members of the editorial board are Richard Brack, Daniel Niemi, Christopher R. Ralston, John P. Millburn, Liz Hueben, Cory S. Anderson, Angela Baughman, Andres Cavelier, Chris Evans, Stephen Kline, Camille Krehbiel, Melanie Matthes, Jennifer Metz and Scott Patty.
MOOELY ChimpPitbane
Vigilance is necessary
U.S. sends correct message to hostages' captors
T the release of U.S. hostage Robert Polihi proves that the hostage crisis is not
proves that the hostage crisis is not Mission Impossible, yet it reminds the United States that waiting quietly is the best solution for a happy ending to this uncompleted mission
After a decade of the crisis, Washington has not found a magic formula to speed up the process of releasing hostages, but it surely has sent the right message: There will be no negotiations if Iran wants the United States to lift its trade embargo.
Now, 17 Western hostages and seven U.S. hostages who remain captive in Lebanon, Syria and Iran are starting to realize their own political isolation.
Syria, as it moves back to the Arab mainstream after years of isolation, apparently wants to improve its image in the West and
nopes that mediating the release of a hostage will persuade the United States to take Syria off its list of countries sponsoring terrorism
And some of the more pragmatic politicians in Iran also apparently want to improve ties with the West, but Washington should remain patient because this situation is extremely delicate.
Hayden's only hope for re-election is a last-minute miracle
President Bush has done well by emphasizing there would be no tradeoff until every hostage is released. Unfreezing Iranian assets, desired by some Iranian leaders, cannot come about until the mission is fully accomplished.
This is a difficult strategy for the families of the hostages to accept, but patience and toughness seem to be the only magic solutions to gain the release of U.S. hostages.
Andres Cavelier for the editorial board
The next few days are crucial for Gov. Mike Hayden.
As the wrap-up session of the Legislature begins today, the governor
lature begins today, the governor's re-election hopes hang in the balance. If Hayden can claim credit for applying a miraculous last-minute salve to the state's festering property-tax sores, he will remain a viable candidate.
If not, he's history.
But property taxpayers wield many votes.
But property taxpayers yield mainly to the protesters rallied at the Capitol and hundreds stormed the governor's office. Hayden met with a small group of the
Though Hayden would prefer otherwise, the property tax crisis has become the magnum_opus of his administration. The governor might weather the political storm he will face from segments of his constituency, such as patrons of higher education and recipients of social services, who feel particularly hard-hit by the state budget crunch.
Derek Schmidt
Staff columnist
protesters and assured them he would work for tax reform.
In early December, a special session of the Legislature provided taxpayers a brief respite by delaying payment deadlines. At that time, lawmakers excused themselves from providing substantive tax relief by arguing that the special session was too
"You can't solve the problems of two decades in two weeks," quotable State Sen. Wint Wint Jr., R-Lawrence, was fond of saying. Now it comes down to another two
During the wrap-up session, legislators will
grapple with the same permutations of rollbacks, tax lids and rate changes that have gummed up the process since the session in Jan. 8. The issues have become no easier.
Hayden has crisscrossed the state during the past two weeks, lambasting the Legislature for overspending and inaction. Lawmakers do deserve much of the blame, especially those Democrats and rogue Republicans who have supported Hayden to call another politically expensive special session to wallow in property tax grievances.
But the pilot follows the fate of his plane, regardless of whether he caused the crash. Hayden will bear the brunt of the property tax burden.
Stalwart Republicans continue to sing Mike Hayden's praises in public. But pritty it is, the governor will rarely, if at all, wrap-up session goes poorly for Hayden, the governor will be in danger of losing
his party's nomination in the August primary.
The nometown of those potential primary opponents is significant. Wichita is the only metropolitan area that supported Hayden in the governor will need it again to win this year.
Incumbent governors often face token primary opposition. But Hayden likely will grapple with some big guns. State Sen. Eric Wost of Yichau is lying in wait. And Nestor Weigand, the crusading anti-property tax leader of the Kansas Association of Realists, already has broadcast political television commercials in the Wichita market.
Hayden supporters try to dismiss such gloomy forecasts. They point to this administration's successes, including the largest state-financed highway program in Kansas history, the state's largest tax cut and the state's largest tax two years of the Margin of Excellence.
But owners of businesses crushed by prop
erty taxes do not laud smooth roads. People now facing doubled or tripled property tax bills have forgotten previous tax cuts. And good schools mean little for people who cannot afford to send their children at all.
Property tax solutions are crucial to Hayden's political future, but his leadership has not been effective. His proposals have floundered in the Legislature, and regardless of his motives and methods, he appears ineffective. And he was not going to delay proposals was to delay the annual updating of property values. That's a step back down the road that led to this mess in the first place.
The governor's supporters continue to point out that he came from behind to win the election, and then he underdogs, they say. But four years ago, Hayden was a small-town legislative leader struggling to overcome anonymity. His problem now is being known too well.
> Derek Schmidt is an independence senior majoring in Journalism.
Other Voices
Conco Inc., a Houston-based oil company, in one bold stroke is presiding the truth of two old adages, "We can learn from our mistakes," and "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
Conoco learns from Exxon's mistake
Conoco is ordering two new oil tankers. But unlike the single-hulled Exxon Valdez which, after running ground, dumped 11 million gallons of petroleum into Alaska waters last year, new ships will have double hulls.
The folks at Conoco are well aware that this type of construction will increase the cost of their new sealing acquisitions by as much as 15
percent, somewhere into the $70 million to $90 million range.
But they also are aware that a Coast Guard study has found that if the Exxon Valdez had been of double-hull construction, its petroleum running aground would have been reduced by as much as 60 percent.
Truly, Conoco has learned from Exxon's experience and with what has been learned is making a powerful statement at that sea and on land it is better to prevent oil spills than clean up after them.
From the Westerley (R.I.) Sun, April 12.
Richard Breck...Editor
Daniel Nieml...Managing editor
Christopher R. Relston...News editor
Merrick Hagen...Editorialist
John Milburn...Editorialist
Candy Niemmann...Campus editor
Mila Donovan...Music editor
E. Joseph Zurga...Photo editor
Stephen Kline...Graphica editor
Kris Bargelut...Arts/Features editor
Tim Eshwal...General Features editor
Margaret Towneand...Business manager
Tami Rank...Retail sales manager
Missy Miller...Campus sales manager
Kevin Roll Real Estate
Nike Lehman...National sales manager
Mindy Morle...Co-op sales manager
Hate Stamos...Production manager
Minnie Mitchell...Association product
Carrie Stanika...Marketing director
James Glaenapp...Creative director
Janet Rorholm...Classified manager
Tommy Glenn...Telemarketing
Jennice Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
News staff
Business staff
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LETTERS to the EDITOR What's the Diel?
Apparently violations of Student Senate election rules by some coalitions were witnessed. The fact that those who witnessed the alleged violations did what they felt was right thing doesn't mean that they are hoping "the complaint might result in their replacing the candidate who beat them." What is the "right thing?"
Stan Diel, what is your deal?
You obviously have soaked up some grease for yourself that has allowed fairness, equality, due process and the basic sense of right versus wrong to slide to the bottom of your priority ranking.
Squeaking to the top in their place is your unequivocal misconception of justice.
The ultimate whinners being exposed through the complaints are those that you have openly typified. When people stand up for what is right, you apparently cringe and complain that time is being wasted — in fact you typify the perennial side man who sticks the innocent person with undersigned label of the victim while playing "think gamesmanship" by "bothering to file complaints about trivial oversights." You sound like the silent observer who witnessed in grade school countless numbers of people who cut in line. According to your logic, this is totally an insignificant occurrence and only when the innocent person trying to protect his or her place in line tools
It is the courage to stand up for one's own beliefs and to stand up for what is right and not to allow the established to exist without proper challenge. By cowering into a corner and not speaking up, you may miss his or her approval and permission (alience means permission).
defense would you speak up — by calling an innocent victim a whiner. What makes that person a victim? The fact that he or she tried to abide by the rules and yet gheated out.
I'm not saying that any coalition got cheated out last week, rather that the coaltions that were charged with violating election rules did not abide by considerate and proper methods. As you say, the infractions, if they occurred, were obviously not intentional. That's fine, but intentional or, an act that violates the rules must have proper response. It is up to the parties to decide whether the violations occurred; if they affected the outcome of the election — and why would they be used in the first place if they weren't going to help?
When we talk about charged violations against people who were candidates for (and may be) the leaders of a community of over 28,000 people with financial responsibilities of more than $1 million, we cannot act prematurely complacent and "hope . . . the trivial complaints about the election blow over."
You also need to reevaluate what you consider important. The sacrificing of fairness and equality is never a triviality, regardless of the context. Principles, by definition, are general laws, doctrines or assumptions that pervade all situations. As a student body, we should not allow the lack of principles of a few and the questionable sense of triviality by a few interference with the inherent foundation of the democratic electoral process . David Suroff
You need to take a closer look at the situation and see that the people who filed complaints did just that — filed complaints with the appropriate judicial system. They are not lurking in the shadows or lambasting the alleged violators. In fact, the only person I see seling mud is you by attacking the persons who are only reporting the wrongdoings of others.
David Suroff Leswood senior
CAMP UHNEELY
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BY SCOTT PATTY