making college affordable
I received an interesting comment today, from a WSU-DDP student. I was surprised because we have so many students working with us to pass I-884 (including at WSU), and this student seems to be against it. He was concerned about high tuition costs...
Perhaps he doesn't know that I-884 creates desperately needed college scholarships and financial aid, as well as more spaces in college. Look at www.levfoundation.org or the Higher Education Coordinating Board to see how Washington State has decreased per-student education funding over the past 10 years. And Washington's student population has increased at the same time, which is what is pressuring universities and even community colleges to increase tuition.
UW's tuition is still far below its peer institutions in other states, but only because our state government subsidizes some of the cost and because UW's faculty is severely underpaid compared to their peers. When I was at UW last year I watched some of my own professors leave to go to other states where they had better opportunities.
I hope that we will be able to pass I-884, to help the financial struggles of this WSU student, and many others who want to be able to afford a quality education.
7 Comments:
Cherise;
You are youthful, patriotic (in participating in politics) and passionate - all admirable characteristics. But you missed the point of my post. I want you to please read the last two sentences of my post, and then my respectful rebuttal.
"We need efficiency in higher ed governance BEFORE another penny is taken from taxpayers - and that includes tuition-payers, too. Then, and only then, will I support this initiative."
You see, I want the money WE taxpayers pay into the system spent appropiately. I don't know if you ever saw my friend Marsha's blog. Or even my reply to her latest post, in which I talked about how the Skagit Valley College Board of Trustees has been gluttonous. For that matter, the State Auditor, the only ELECTED "trust fund" board member CANNOT vote on the Board's decisions and prevent I-884 money from going to the trustees' for more retreats to ritzy restaurants. MY POINT: Why do we need more money when the current money is not being spent appropiately?
In closing, I want to make the following points:
*I-884 does NOT reduce my tuition (which is a T-A-X), or anybody else's. However, I-884 DOES increase my sales TAX when I purchase food, textbooks, etcetera. I think you are smart enough to figure out what I am saying...
*I-884 scholarships are wonderful, but are not the solution because they will simply take money from all students and other taxpayers for a select few and breed resentment. The solution I respectfully believe is performance audits, finding savings in college administration (Why does WSU need a Vice President for Diversity??? Why did WSU President V. Lane Rawlins deserve a pay increase greater than the pay of many WSU professors?) and then lowering taxes to the appropiate level to fund the reduced need for taxpayer dollars.
Do that, you make higher ed affordable/accessible to all. Do that and you also have people making more income. This puts more money into the economy, which means more products are needed, which means expanding plants & services to create more jobs, and so on. You're smart and you will figure out what I mean.
Josef
P.S. Up in B.C., Premier Gordon Campbell upon entering office cut taxes in June 2001. After the downturn of 11 Sept., he got the economy going again and is now able to afford massive growth in B.C. higher ed according to recent TV ads on Canadian TV. Food for thought...
With respect, I want to amplify, extend and revise my remarks.
First off, I WILL go on record, right here and now and say that if there was a "Coalition of the Just" to get an initiative to the legislature to require pay equity in re higher ed adjunct faculty - I will campaign and fight like a mad junkyard dog FOR it. Our adjunct faculty deserve better than unequal pay for equal work and this initiative does absolutely NOTHING to close the gap.
Second, because I believe closing the pay gap must be the FIRST AND FOREMOST PRIORITY OF ANY NEW HIGHER ED FUNDING, you can add that to my reasons for opposition. Of course, let's not forget I am fundamentally against outrageous pay hikes for Presidents, Vice Presidents for Diversity (read Townhall.com's Mike Adams for why), and gluttonous trustee expenditures (I gave you the link). As the genius (a term I do not give easily to a...) recent grad of Husky Law - namely Julia Youngs - wrote in the Seattle P-I, "It's obvious that we must provide funding to back up our educational goals, but dollars are limited, and can be spent only once. We must prudently use our educational dollars and redirect money spent on non-performing investments."
Third, on that note, I think I-884's supporters had better have a reality check. Sure, this Democrat really will be quite uncomfortable sharing the same stage with Dick Armey - a Clinton nemesis - but this IS about freedom. About whether this is a genuine "firewall" or not. About whether this is the right choice or not.
Fourth, I know about the 'Orwell' picture. I don't like the comment the guy posted (a bit over the top). But as somebody who wants Eyman's head on a platter too, you sure sound like him when you call signatures "pets." Eyman - and I know as a VP of an anti-Eyman group - manipulates his support base and his donors with only the facts HE thinks they need to hear. I hope you disown that kind of view.
Have a good night;
Josef
P.S. Read this, too:
"We need not debate about the mere words evolution or progress: personally I prefer to call it reform. For reform implies form. It implies that we are trying to shape the world in a particular image; to make it something that we see already in our minds. Evolution is a metaphor from mere automatic unrolling. Progress is a metaphor from merely walking along a road -- very likely the wrong road. But reform is a metaphor for reasonable and determined men: it means that we see a certain thing out of shape and we mean to put it into shape. And we know what shape."
G.K. Chesterton's book "Orthodoxy"
Courtesy of http://mlouise.blogspot.com/ , who's giving the wastrels the truth and they think it's h-e-double-l.
This just in (and yet another reason to vote NO on I-884 - I feel so, so sorry for those duped buisnessfolk because when they read the below, they'll ask: WHY ARE WE NOT DOING THIS HERE, FIRST???):
Efficiency Review Identifies $2.1 Million in Savings for Richmond City Public School Division
— Initiative part of Governor Warner’s Education for a Lifetime program —
RICHMOND - Governor Mark R Warner announced today that a voluntary efficiency review launched as part of his Education for a Lifetime initiative last fall has documented $2,139,292 in potential savings within the Richmond City Public School Division -- the equivalent of the starting salaries of 47 new teachers, with benefits.
http://www.governor.virginia.gov/Press_Policy/Releases/2004/Aug04/0823.htm
Shouldn't this come BEFORE higher taxes? As Governor Warner is quoted at http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=252870&kaid=104&subid=116, "We're going to show taxpayers that public education will do its part to achieve savings, accountability and efficiency." We being Virginia.
We should also be Washington State. Maybe the initiative should be resubmitted with the State Auditor's Office able to duplicate Virginia's success.
For more reasons to be against I-884, see my blog http://josef-a-k.blogspot.com
And also http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0439/040929_news_microsoft.php - the sick little game of pushing higher ed expenditures onto the poor and suckering in the good folks at the I-884 campaign into it!
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