Obama is smooth...

[trish]

Smooth........

Great slow jam.

Rush Limbaugh recently complained that college students want their contaception for free and now they want their education for free. Applying for a loan is not asking for free money. Loans are repaid and usually with interest...unless you’re a commerical bank. Commercial banks are still being lent money with zero interest rates. The GOP can’t see their way clear to make student loans available at a reasonable rate of interest, at a time when we need educated personnel and yet they can easily see their way clear to giving tax breaks to Bill Gates, the Koch Brothers, George Soros, and other assorted billionaires. The Koch brothers aren’t creating new jobs, and they wouldn’t need the extra money even if they were. The cost of an education now competes with the cost of a small house. If two students who meet in college get married, the union is already saddled with the debt of two small houses. I thought the GOP was the party of family values!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/op...-tax-cuts.html

[kensterling]

Obama seized the student loan program when he took office. You should talk to him about interest rates, GOP has nothing to do with it. BTW, why are univerisities so expensive anyway? They should have a limit on how much they can raise their tuition, like they do with homeowners tax.
Just a couple thoughts.

[mildcigar_2001]

If two students who meet in college get married, the union is already saddled with the debt of two small houses. I thought the GOP was the party of family values!

The federal government student loan program is one of the major factors in driving up college education costs.

I've been back to college several times since my initial bachelors degrees (this is over the last 20 years or so). The "game" as the colleges and federal government play it is to raise the tuition prices and then raise the borrowing amounts that are allowed each semester for student loans, and then raise the tuition. This seems to go on in an endless cycle. The colleges raise their fees in order to “capture” more of the available revenue. At the same time less and less money (percentage wise) goes towards actual education (faculty) and more and more money goes towards administrative expenses.

The amounts available to borrow each semester should be cut (the maximum amount should be the cost of going to a state college). We should not be supporting Ivy League colleges (especially since most have multi-billion dollar endowments). There are plenty of spurious areas that can be cut out of college budgets and almost everyone knows it but it is too politically incorrect to mention cuts to Woman’s studies, Gay studies departments. The amount of administrators should be reduced. Focus on the sciences and traditional liberal arts. We do no one any favors allowing them to go thousands into debt and end up in a more or less useless degree in social work or woman’s studies. If you can’t afford the Ivy League go to state college.

Quit encouraging dependency on the government.

[trish]

That's just stupid. Education is always the first thing state governments cut money is tight. Higher Ed is always the first sacrifice. Over the last thirty years state universities and colleges have met funding cuts with tuition hikes. That is the primary factor in the current high cost of educated at state sponsored schools. Private universities and colleges have always had individually negotiated tuitions; it's an old practice that cannot be blamed on the existence of federal student loans.

Btw, Obama was pretty damn smooth slow jamming' the news.

[mildcigar_2001]

That's just stupid. Education is always the first thing state governments cut money is tight. Higher Ed is always the first sacrifice. Over the last thirty years state universities and colleges have met funding cuts with tuition hikes. That is the primary factor in the current high cost of educated at state sponsored schools. Private universities and colleges have always had individually negotiated tuitions; it's an old practice that cannot be blamed on the existence of federal student loans.

Btw, Obama was pretty damn smooth slow jamming' the news.

Below is a list of Departments from UCLA:
Curricula and Courses by Department

African Studies

International Development Studies
Afro-American Studies

Islamic Studies
American Indian Studies

Italian
Anesthesiology

Labor and Workplace Studies
Anthropology

Latin American Studies
Applied Linguistics

Law
Archaeology

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies
Architecture and Urban Design

Life Sciences
Art

Linguistics
Art History

Management
Arts and Architecture

Materials Science and Engineering
Asian American Studies

Mathematics
Asian Languages and Cultures

Mathematics/Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

Mathematics/Economics
Bioengineering

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Bioinformatics

Medicine
Biological Chemistry

Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics
Biomathematics

Middle Eastern and North African Studies
Biomedical Engineering

Molecular and Medical Pharmacology
Biomedical Physics

Molecular Biology
Biomedical Research

Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology
Biostatistics

Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Physiology
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Molecular Toxicology
Chemistry and Biochemistry

Moving Image Archive Studies
Chemistry/Materials Science

Music
Chicana and Chicano Studies

Musicology
Civic Engagement

Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
Civil and Environmental Engineering

Neurobiology
Classics

Neurology
Communication Studies

Neuroscience (Undergraduate)
Community Health Sciences

Neuroscience (Graduate)
Comparative Literature

Neurosurgery
Computational and Systems Biology

Nursing
Computer Science

Obstetrics and Gynecology
Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials

Ophthalmology
Dentistry

Oral Biology
Design | Media Arts

Orthopaedic Surgery
Digital Humanities

Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Disability Studies

Pediatrics
Earth and Space Sciences

Philosophy
East Asian Studies

Physics and Astronomy
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Physiology
Economics

Political Science
Education

Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
Electrical Engineering

Psychology
Engineering Schoolwide Programs

Public Affairs
English

Public Health
Environmental Health Sciences

Public Health Schoolwide Programs
Environmental Science and Engineering

Public Policy
Epidemiology

Radiation Oncology
Ethnomusicology

Radiological Sciences
European Studies

Religion, Study of
Family Medicine

ROTC Program
Aerospace Studies
Military Science
Naval Science
Film, Television, and Digital Media

Scandinavian Section
Foreign Literature in Translation

Slavic Languages and Literatures
French and Francophone Studies

Social Thought
Freshman General Education Clusters

Social Welfare
Geography

Society and Genetics
Germanic Languages

Sociology
Gerontology

South Asian Studies
Global Studies

Southeast Asian Studies
Health Services

Spanish and Portuguese
History

Statistics
History/Art History

Surgery
Honors Collegium

Theater
Human Complex Systems

Urban Planning
Human Genetics

Urology
Indo-European Studies

Visual and Performing Arts Education
Information Studies

Women’s Studies
Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

World Arts and Cultures/Dance
Integrative Biology and Physiology

Writing Programs

I think I could easily cut at least 25% of the Departments (begining with African Studies and ending with World Arts and Cultures/Dance) and there would be greatly reduced cost to the university and there would be more actual education going on. Do we really need "Asian American Studies" let alone gay studies? These BS departments are one of the reasons the cost of college in skyrocketing and real learning is diminishing. Focus on the traditional liberal arts and sciences. Anyone who is stupid enough to borrow money for a degree in dance deserves their poverty.

[buttslinger]

My niece went to the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax Co. Thomas Jefferson, which serves as Northern Virginia’s selective magnet school, is known for its scholastic excellence. It has been named the nation’s best public high school by U.S. News & World Report during all five years the magazine has published its ranking.
Of those students receiving acceptance to the school for 2016, 64.2 percent (308 students) are Asian, 26.3 percent (126) are white, 2.7 percent (13) are Hispanic, and 1.5 percent (seven) are black.
Wake up, Cigar. Education is our Economic Future.

[trish]

Nonsense again. It is not the variety of products offered that increases their price, but the demand for the product. Education has always been expensive; you just didn't because state and federal governments subsidized most of your education. Today student are paying for more of it themselves. Students are not even asking for the subsidy rate you got when you were a student; they are simply asking the GOP to refrain from doubling the interest rates of student loans.

Universities have always been and will likely continue to be the primary innovators in science, technology and arts ranging over biological, engineering, computing, agricultural, medical, genetic and energy related applications. The payoff in expertise and directly applicable knowledge made available through universities to corporations of every ilk is of incalculable value. Cut universities and you slice off a chunk of your future ...in the name of ideology and very short run savings.

[trish]

You forget too, mildcigar, that departments depend upon one another financially. Though physicists, chemists and mathematicians are urgently needed, students of these disciplines are few and far between. They are educated by departments that make their bread and butter teaching theater students, musicians and others elementary science and mathematics. Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics departments in most universities are known as service departments because the greater portion of the students they education do not major in those subjects. Cut all theater programs and you may well diminish the number of chemical engineers available to industry at large, that or make educating a chemical engineer a much more expensive endeavor.

[mildcigar_2001]

Nonsense again. It is not the variety of products offered that increases their price, but the demand for the product. Education has always been expensive; you just didn't because state and federal governments subsidized most of your education. Today student are paying for more of it themselves. Students are not even asking for the subsidy rate you got when you were a student; they are simply asking the GOP to refrain from doubling the interest rates of student loans.

Universities have always been and will likely continue to be the primary innovators in science, technology and arts ranging over biological, engineering, computing, agricultural, medical, genetic and energy related applications. The payoff in expertise and directly applicable knowledge made available through universities to corporations of every ilk is of incalculable value. Cut universities and you slice off a chunk of your future ...in the name of ideology and very short run savings.

Universities are similar to most governments in being inherently wasteful. The recent GSA scandal reinforces this point in spades. The GSA is supposed to be the government’s watchdog agency and yet no one it seems is keeping an eye on the watchdog.

You didn’t respond to my main point that there is plenty on “educational fat” to be cut. Of what economic value are gay studies, or African studies or Dance departments?
None.

Save the money on the spurious programs and concentrate on teaching the basics of math, science, history. As I said I got my first college degree about 20 years ago, and I was shocked looking at the UCLA catalog how many frivolous departments there now are. The universities need to make some hard choices and eliminate some programs, eliminate administrative staff and thereby lower costs. Good God what is someone going to do with a bachelor’s degree in gay and lesbian studies? Believe me I made a similar mistake myself in originally getting a Sociology degree (the only thing it was good for was to get into graduate school).

[trish]

Universities are similar to most governments in being inherently wasteful. The recent GSA scandal reinforces this point in spades.

No, it doesn't. You haven't been to any academic conferences sponsored by state institutions if you think they are anything at all like the GSA affair. LOL You're all conjecture and opinion with nothing to back it up.

You didn’t respond to my main point that there is plenty on “educational fat” to be cut.

Yes I did. Read again. Go back and take a reading comprehension course. Pay twice the current interest rates.

Good God what is someone going to do with a bachelor’s degree in gay and lesbian studies? Believe me I made a similar mistake myself in originally getting a Sociology degree

Don't blame your own poor decisions on the availability of low interest student loans. You got a subsidized liberal arts education and now you want to deny others the opportunity you wasted.