Governor Dennis Daugaard offers a little good news for a minority of South Dakota college students but bad news for all Regental students.
In the small good news, Governor Daugaard is willing to spend $1.274 million to increase the Opportunity Scholarship from $5,000 to $6,500. 1,224 new students got the Opportunity Scholarship last year, bringing the total number of recipients in FY2014 to 3,757. Opportunity Scholars get $1,000 during each of their first three undergraduate years, then $2,000 in their fourth year. Given an average yearly cost of $14,037 at our public universities, the proposed increase raises the value of the Opportunity Scholarship from 8.9.% to 11.6% of the price of a public four-year degree.
Opportunity Scholars make up 8.4% of the students enrolled on Regental campuses. Continuing last year's tuition freeze for all of them would cost $6.8 million. Governor Daugaard says we don't have the money for that relief, and Regents exec Jack Warner says the Regents won't push the Governor for another tuition freeze. Students seeking relief from the costs the state has piled onto their young shoulders, you may be on your own in Pierre. Time for some student organizing!
Leo featured:
http://www.yankton.net/community/article_2dc9a684-7b6d-11e4-b121-93b40145b908.html
Larry's link is entirely irrelevant to this post... but I'm still glad to see our man Kallis in the paper! If students want to see the state support higher education more, they should lobby Kallis to use his post as president of the South Dakota Speech Communication Association to create a political action committee that would (1) initiate a ballot measure to move the Legislative session to summer and (2) recruit speech teachers and debate coaches to run for office and establish a governing majority in Pierre. The philosopher-kings who teach speech in this state would ensure that higher education got more support.
Leo commented on another post but i was too lazy to go look for it.
Cory, fee increases, including tuition, is just part of a larger scheme to milk the citizens so that the system of legal corruption has more to transfer to the crony capitalists.
Fascism adheres to the “philosopher-king” belief that only one class—which is by birth, education, or social standing—is capable of understanding what is best for the whole community and putting it into practice. Thus fascism tends to develop when those in business who want unearned wealth or power join forces with would-be philosopher-kings with that Platonist vision—or become one and the same, under the Platonist assumption that they and their selected cohorts are most fit to rule. At first, the system is not overtly totalitarian. Those with newfound power want as many people as they can to accept their leadership without being forced. Although the classic fascists openly subverted constitutional democracy … they took great pains to conceal the Big Capital-Big Government partnership.
http://city-countyobserver.com/public-private-partnerships-and-home-grown-soft-fascism/
Steve, isn't that in essence what a Republic is? Certainly the US Senate and the SCOTUS fit Plato's 'philosopher king' description. If I didn't know better, I'd say you're making an argument for direct democracy. ;-)
Oh, oh... Jumped down the rabbit hole. Sorry Cory. LOL
One public college textbook, just one, can cost $200 or more in today college bookstores. Some people think that college students today are a bunch of whiners, but after seeing and hearing about these prices, I wonder why more students aren't rallying. This is just the biggest racket! What is the main outlier that is really driving up these costs? Cory, anyone?
Just think of all the scholarships and tuition freezes that could have been covered by that $140 million the Rounds/Bollen crooks disappeared from state coffers.