Tuition is a perennial problem for college students, especially out-of-state students. For the University of Oregon, each year will set an average out-of-state student back around $13,000. If you’re an Oregonian, you can knock off $10,000. If you want to go to Harvard, even if you hail from Massachusetts, expect to pay about as much as a luxury, four-door Lexus with no extras. For the entire year. No fooling, folks, to attend the prestigious Harvard, the school with its own coats of arms, expect to shell out $35,000 per year.
And, there is an extra hurdle if you’re from California. There are “exchange programs,” if you will, that allow students from different states west of the Rockies to attend universities in other western states for only 150 percent of in-state tuition. However, if you’re from California and want to go to either Eugene or Corvallis, the response you can expect is “Go invade Idaho, you evil Californicator.” Feh. So much for us all being one big, happy country.
It’s not this hard in Europe. Higher education is free. Just pass an insanely hard battery of tests in your last year of high school, and you’re guaranteed a spot in any university of your choice. And even if you can’t make it into a university, there are free (or near-free) vocational schools or smaller colleges. However, would it fly in America? It could mean raising taxes, and right now, we have people without children griping about having to pay taxes to run primary and secondary education with the refrain “I don’t have children, why should I pay to send someone else’s brats to high school?”
Let me digress for a moment and say to these people: Fine. Don’t pay. We’ll just let one of these uneducated kids perform your double bypass 20 years from now.
Something has to be done. A dinky tax credit and a few relief bills passed by Congress aren’t going to do it. Something has to be done to bring tuition down across the board, at both public and private schools. Whether that is government subsidies for schools — which is done already on the state level, and a fat lotta good that does for those of us who aren’t residents of said state — or other, alternative ways — perhaps private subsidies from businesses or perhaps even forcing schools into a competitive model in both price and education value — something has to be done. Because now, “guns or butter” has become “schooling or automobiles.”
Even worse …
A disturbing trend on many college campuses is the increasing instances of rape. According to one Department of Justice report, on a campus with a female population comparable to ours (around 10,000), 350 women will be victims of rape during their college careers. Even more appalling is the fact that of those women, nearly two-thirds will be victims in their residence halls, more than will be victims of rape at a fraternity house or living in apartments. Why this number is sickeningly high is a matter of debate. However, there can be no debate that one rape is one too many. Campus authorities must do what they can to stem this rise in sexual assault.
They should, either through on-campus groups or residence hall associations, offer self-defense training to those who wish to take part. Security should be strengthened in dorms as well, which would have the double effect of making the residents feel more secure while putting potential rapists on notice that they are not welcome. It might even behoove the residence halls to consider some sort of enforced prohibition, as many sexual assaults are fueled by alcohol.
What we do not need, however, is the perpetuation of the myth that all men are rapists. Someone who commits as horrible, unconscionable of an act as rape is an abnormal person. Yes, we need to be aware and come together to end sexual assault. We have to come to the aid of those who are victims or potential victims. We have to end the so-called “rape culture” proffered by garbage speakers such as “Eminem.” We do not, however, need to engage in pointless political name calling at a time when we need every person on campus to come together to end campus rape at colleges across the United States. All men are not rapists. But we can help put an end to rape.
