Cutting grants

will hurt Oregonians
In the near future, our Legislature will be making a grave decision that will significantly affect the access of higher education to students in Oregon. Our budget deficit falls at $720 million, and the ominous changes that are to come due to this shortfall should be disturbing to all students.
Among the programs that could be cut during our Legislature’s special session are the Student Childcare Block Grant and the Oregon Opportunity Grant. Budget cuts to the OOG alone will mean 1,500 to 3,000 students will be without essential grant funding they require to continue their higher education. The proposed $2 million cut to the SCBG will mean 433 student families will lose coverage in April, and the funding for this program will not return until 2003.
Imagine sitting in a psychology class with 200 students and one or two University students who benefited from the SCBG are in your class. In order to gain the education they need to support their families, they now have no other choice but to bring their children to classes with them. How well could you concentrate? How are these parents supposed to continue their education without the SCBG program that helped keep them here?
As extreme as this seems, my point is that it is very important we all promote retraining Oregonians, especially student parents, and support further education in Oregon’s higher education system for both the benefit of our community’s future and our own futures.

Carmen Stuewe

senior

international studies

Don’t crush Moss Street

neighborhood
Mike Eyster and the University Housing Department finally admit that they intend to remove the 10 blocks of historic neighborhood at Moss, Columbia and Villard Streets. The Register-Guard and the Emerald are covering a story the housing department dreads having to talk about.
By admitting that they consider the 112 homes as “temporary” and that they are busy evicting low-income graduate teaching fellows’ families, they run the risk of the rest of this town writing itself into their decision. The Moss Street neighborhood exists now as a safe, low income nodal neighborhood due for its 100-year historic review.
Just across Moss Street, there are vast, empty lots they could build on. Sure, build a new day care center, but don’t crush families and a great neighborhood in the process.

Zachary Vishanoff

Eugene