18 minute read
Weird
Creme de la Weird
It’s back-to-school time all across the country, and in Kentucky, one district has an unexpected challenge in one of its high schools. WLKY-TV reported that high school students in the Meade County school district are attending school dressed as and acting like ... cats. One grandmother is upset because her two grandchildren don’t want to go to school anymore. “Apparently, from what I understand, they’re called ‘furries,’” she said. “They identify with animals. These people will hiss at you or scratch at you if they don’t like something you’re doing. The students are told they can’t wear hats or Budweiser shirts in school, but they can wear cat ears, cat tails, masks, leashes. It doesn’t make sense.” Superintendent Mark Martin says the problem is being handled on an individual basis, which he can’t discuss.
Awesome!
The Vatican in Rome is full of the spoils taken by or given to popes over the centuries, but Pope Francis has a new toy that’s delighting him: a foosball table. The Associated Press reported that a Tuscany-based table football association, Sport Toscana Calcio Balilla, presented the pope with the game on Aug. 18, and he immediately struck up a match with Natale Tonini, president of the club. Pope Francis is a big fan of soccer and of his home club, San Lorenzo, in Argentina.
Bright Ideas
Two Polish companies are joining forces to make construction workers’ lives more pleasant, Reuters reported on Aug. 23. Budimex and Lotos have created a floral-scented asphalt with a mixture of natural and synthetic oils that neutralize the typical smell of asphalt. “At times one could smell the scent of flowers, which made working more pleasant,” said Slawomir Szpak, a foreman for Budimex. The company is planning to introduce the new compound on a wider scale.
In Canberra, Australia, farmer Ben Jackson recently lost his beloved aunt. He couldn’t attend her funeral because of COVID-19 restrictions, so he did the next best thing: He dropped his sheep’s food from a truck in the shape of a giant heart, then shot video from a drone as the ewes gathered to eat. “It took me a few goes to get it right ... and the final result is what you see,” Jackson told the Associated Press. “That was as close to a heart as I could get it.”
Crime Report
Kristin Levine of Bristol, Connecticut, was the victim of a porch pirate on Aug. 23, but the thief was a little unusual: It was a black bear who walked across her driveway with an Amazon package in its mouth, NBC Connecticut reported. Fortunately, the bear wasn’t much interested in the contents (toilet paper) and dropped the item in her neighbor’s yard. “I knew nothing in there was going to be irreplaceable, so it was a fun afternoon for sure,” Levine said.
Compelling Explanation
Erick Minto, 49, walked into a convenience store in Wawa, Florida, on Aug. 17, and asked for free food, The Smoking Gun reported. When the clerk refused, Minto allegedly pulled out a knife and pointed it at the worker, uttering a quotable line: “Don’t make me do something stupid for a Snickers bar.” The clerk handed over the candy bar, but Minto left the store without it and later told Pinellas County Sheriff’s officer that he was “attempting to trade the knife for a Snickers bar.” He was charged with armed robbery.
Animal Attraction
The Antwerp Zoo in Belgium has banned Adie Timmermans from visiting Chita, a 38-year-old male chimpanzee, after their “relationship” has caused him to be ostracized by the other chimps, the Daily Mail reported. Timmermans has come to see Chita every week for the past four years, and the two blow kisses and wave to each other. “I love that animal and he loves me,” Timmermans argued. “I haven’t got anything else. Why do they want to take that away?” Chita started his life as a pet, but came to the zoo 30 years ago and is known to be interactive with humans. However, when Timmermans isn’t there with him, he spends most of his time alone. “An animal that is too focused on people is less respected by its peers, and we want Chita to be a chimpanzee as much as possible,” explained zoo curator Sarah Lafaut.
Creative Criminal
Firearms are hard to come by in Japan, so criminals often resort to makeshift weapons to threaten their victims, including nose hair clippers and kitchen knives. On Aug. 21, Tomoharu Nakamura, 41, of Sapporo, was arrested after trying to rob a convenience store using a lighter, SoraNews24 reported. “Out with the money or I’ll light you up!” Nakamura allegedly said to the store manager, who instead ran to the back room and called police. When officers arrived, Nakamura tried to turn his fierce weapon on them, but they quickly overwhelmed him and charged him with robbery and assault, along with other offenses.
Government in Action
The city of Naples, Florida, has spent more than $340,000 over the last three years suing the owners of seawalls that officials say are in disrepair and pose a danger to citizens, Wink News reported. The city and property owners have gone around and around about who owns the seawalls, and the lawsuits continued even after an engineer hired by Naples determined that only one of the seawalls was actually failing. Finally, in May, an arbitrator declared that the seawalls are owned by the city of Naples. “Procrastination and wasting money of the taxpayers is complete,” announced the new mayor, Teresa Heitmann.
Irony
At Harvard University, the president of the organization of chaplains coordinates the campus’s assorted religious communities. The New York Times reported that the new president, 44-year-old Greg Epstein, is a bit of a trailblazer in the job: He’s an atheist. Harvard chaplains unanimously felt Epstein, who previously served as the university’s humanist chaplain, could relate to a growing group of young people who no longer identify with any religious tradition. Epstein grew up in a Jewish family and recognizes the “real need for conversation and support around what it means to be a good human and live an ethical life,” he said. “We don’t look to a god for answers. We are each other’s answers.” The chairperson of the nominating committee, the Rev. Kathleen Reed, explained: “We’re presenting to the university a vision of how the world could work when diverse traditions focus on how to be good humans and neighbors.”
NATIONAL WRITERS SERIES
PRESENTS A CONVERSATION WITH AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR PAM HOUSTON
SEPTEMBER 9 • 7pm
(IN PERSON AT CIVIC CENTER AMPHITHEATER + LIVESTREAMED)
Pam Houston will discuss her moving memoir, Deep
Creek: Finding Hope in the
High Country, at our new outdoor venue at the Civic Center. Alongside guest host Christal Frost, Pam will show us what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it, and how nature heals even our deepest wounds.
Winner of the 2020 Reading the West Advocacy Award and the 2020 Colorado
Book Award for Creative Nonfiction
Event Sponsor: Grand Traverse Pie Company • Community Partners: Traverse Bay Children’s Advocacy Center; Grass River Natural Area
Get tickets now at NationalWritersSeries.org
144 E FRONT STREET TRAVERSE CITY, MI 49684 plamondons.com MO-SAT 10-6 SUN CLOSED
Jim and Wendy Rowe are attending North Central Michigan College for an associate degree to become paramedics. The couple was able to afford college thanks to the Futures for Frontliners tuition assistance program. (Photo: North Central Michigan College)
FREE COLLEGE?
READ BETWEEN THE LINES
By Todd VanSickle
Jim and Wendy Rowe are basic EMTs with the Frederic Township Fire Department. They love their job and caring for people.
They see a significant part of the healthcare industry moving toward paramedicine, where paramedics make house calls to deliver care to the elderly and sick — and both want to be at the top of their game as it does.
“When I put a patient back in my ambulance they are family,” Jim says. “I mean, that’s the way I treat them. I just want to be able to give them the best care that I can. And as a paramedic, I can do way more, and that’s what I want to do: give them the best care.”
However, Jim and Wendy need more education and training to become paramedics.
Wendy received her basic EMT license, which takes about six months to complete the course, through North Central Michigan College in Emmett County in 2007, while her husband received his in 2013.
But becoming a paramedic costs a lot more and takes about three years.
“We couldn’t afford it for both of us, let alone one,” Jim says.
Then, they heard about the Futures for Frontliners program, a state scholarship program for Michiganders without college degrees who worked in essential industries during the height of the pandemic. Part of the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020, Future Frontliners launched in Sept. 2020 and accepted applications until this summer, quickly giving thousands of essential workers the green light to pursue higher education free or at a significantly discounted rate.
“It was easier than applying for federal grants,” Wendy says. “I think it took me a halfhour to fill in all the information, and within a matter of weeks we both got our approval.”
The road wasn’t all sunshine and roses, of course. Despite living within one mile of NCMC’s off-campus location in Gaylord, the EMT couple still had to pay out-ofdistrict tuition for the Emmett County community college. However, they weren’t complaining; the discounted rate Futures for Frontliners finally put the cost of more advanced schooling cost within reach.
All told, to become paramedics, the Rowes estimate that they will pay $2,000 total, as opposed to the more than $10,000 each it would have cost without the state program. On average, they are paying about $200 to $500 per semester. The couple is in their third semester of getting their associate
degree and will graduate in 2022.
“If it hadn’t been for the state of Michigan, it would still be a dream,” Jim says.
IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
During the past year, programs like Futures for Frontliners and Michigan Reconnect received bipartisan legislative support to provide support to former students to finish their degrees and get other residents additional training and education so they can fill high-demand jobs. The programs are an effort to reach the state’s Sixty by 30 goal of ensuring 60 percent of the state’s residents will have a post-secondary degree by 2030.
The $30 million Michigan Reconnect program launched this February and, according to most recent numbers, about 80,000 have been accepted. The Futures for Frontliners program has accepted 85,000 applicants, with more than 15,000 currently enrolled.
Since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced the Sixty by 30 goal, the percentage of working-age adults with a certificate, associate degree, or higher has increased from 45 to 49 percent.
However, the programs are hardly perfect. The primary complaints: They exclude some residents from receiving full financial assistance, and they frustrate college admissions directors with their
claims of free tuition.
On the Futures for Frontliners website, “free tuition” is promoted on nearly every page.
That claim is a bit of an overreach. “We encourage the state not to call it free tuition or free community college, because it’s not free for everyone,” says Northwestern Michigan College Director of Admissions Cathryn Claerhout. “It’s a discount in pricing.”
Each year when August rolls around, the NMC admissions director is busy helping students enroll at the community college. This year is even busier than last.
Despite — or perhaps because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic — enrollment is up 2.4 percent compared to last year, says Claerhout. She added that the number of registered students is up 5.7 percent as well.
“We’ve really adapted our offerings to be not only in seats, but we have the online, and we have hybrid, and then we have what’s called livestream,” Claerhout says.
Last January, Futures for Frontliners got underway at NMC. A total of 464 students applied for the fall semester, and 339 qualified and are receiving some sort of financial assistance.
In the spring semester, 713 applied for the program and 426 qualified.
In Petoskey, NCMC has 192 students who are eligible for the Futures for Frontliners program, with 136 enrolled. The Michigan Reconnect program has 168 eligible students, and 117 have enrolled.
Corey Lansing, North Central Michigan College director of admissions, says he is happy with the number of students enrolled and receiving assistance through the programs.
“That’s been a major push on my end to get those students enrolled because they’re eligible,” Lansing says. “We have seen a lot of students who were already enrolled taking advantage of the programs.”
During the spring semester, however, the NMC director of admissions says at least 30 students who were enrolled dropped all their classes before the start of the semester. The issue: They still had some costs to pay and couldn’t.
She described the programs as a “last dollar in scholarship,” which picks up what is left after a student applies for grants, scholarships, and, sometimes, loans.
POORER COUNTIES, HIGHER TUITION COSTS
Students who reside in a county that has a community college are considered indistrict and qualify for fully paid tuition. For example, a student living in Kalkaska County would not qualify to have their tuition fully paid if they were attending NMC, a community college in Grand Traverse
County. A student living in Kingsley, which is part of Grand Traverse County, would.
There are 31 community colleges in Michigan that participate in the tuition programs. According to the Michigan Reconnect website, about 80 percent of Michigan students live in a community college district.
Lansing says northern Michigan is unique because so many students live in districts that don’t have a community college. However, he pointed to downstate and says the majority of the students there do live in counties with a community college.
The problem: “The programs are both billed as free tuition,” Lansing says. “If you go in a little deeper, and especially when you’re in communities like ours, where we have a lot of out-of-district students, these programs are only paying free tuition for in-district students. That’s been the biggest frustration or challenge. Everything else has been manageable.”
Although the tuition programs have good intentions, some students could use the assistance more than others. Students who are considered out of district tend to reside in counties with less resources (such as a community college), lower median income per household, and are typically less educated overall.
According to Networks Northwest, Kalkaska ranks last among 10 northern Michigan counties in median household income, while Grand Traverse, whose residents can receive free tuition, is second highest.
Kalkaska also ranks last in Bachelor degrees per household at 7.5 percent, while Grand Traverse has the second most behind Leelanau at 22.6 percent. Emmett County, which is home to NCMC, is third at 20.2 percent.
“It’s a great program, I appreciate it,” Claerhout says. “And I feel that it benefits those that want to take advantage of it. But I do feel like it’s a little bit of a bait and switch with the state saying it’s free tuition. Well, tuition is one cost, but then we have added general fees. So there can be additional costs that add up for the student that are not covered.”
For a Grand Traverse resident, tuition for a general full-time semester would be $1,344. Additional fees on top of the tuition include a general fee of $366 and a health service fee of $40 for a combined total of $1,750. Outof-district students would pay $3,214. Costs vary depending on the program that the student is enrolled in.
NCMC’s in-district tuition cost $1,920, while out of district is $2,964 per semester.
“I wish the state would have thought this out in a little bit a different way, in order to service students who could really take advantage of this,” says the NCMC admission director. “But even if you are an out-of-district student, you are still getting a pretty good discount on your education.”
The NMC admissions director says her college and other community colleges around the state have looked at ways to be more inclusive to offer in-district tuition to students in surrounding counties, but they have failed.
“You’ll always have your Grand Traverse County residents who will say, ‘I paid a millage to get a lower rate. Why should someone outside of Grand Traverse, who’s not paid, get a lower rate?’” Claerhout says. “We tried it — I think it was 10 to 12 years ago — with the surrounding counties, and they all voted it down. It’s only important to you when it affects you.”
TUITION — AND STUDENT AGE — KEEPS CLIMBING
Claerhout has been working with college admissions since the 1990s. She says in the 1980s, 70 to 80 percent of colleges’ budgets came from the state. Over the years and through various governors, cuts to the budget have left colleges no choice but to raise tuition costs. Today, the 15 public universities in the state receive 11 percent while most community colleges receive under 21 percent. Fifty-four percent of NMC’s revenue is from tuition, says Claerhout.
The college does offer more than 650 scholarships, which benefit many Futures for Frontliners applicants, but that, too, is sometimes not enough.
“It still doesn’t work for everybody, because they still can’t afford it,” Claerhout says. “It’s one of those things that we look closely at, and we’re trying to work with everyone that we can, but when the state says free tuition, it doesn’t help us.”
One silver lining is that the tuition programs are ushering in older students at the right time.
In 2020, Michigan saw 166,000 less high school graduating seniors compared to the year before. This is bad news for colleges throughout the state that depend on healthy enrollments to balance budgets. However, Michigan Reconnect is literally changing the face of enrollment with new students that are older. Applicants must be 25 years or older.
“Our adult population who have some college, but don’t have a degree within our six county area is close to 19,000 people,” says Claerhout.
Currently, NMC is strategically planning for the next 10 years. On the table, is the college’s older student population, who may have families and busier schedules to contend with.
“They are much different to recruit,” Claerhout says. “And how we talk with them, and the services that they need, and the modality of how we offer classes.”
Jim, 59, and Wendy, 53, both enjoy being back in school.
“The college and its instructors have been awesome,” Jim says. “They work with us. They’ve got our backs.”
The couple is carrying a 3.8 or higher grade point average. They had just finished their final exam and were going on vacation to Georgia, where Jim was raised. Aside from Futures for Frontliners, they have received assistance in the form of Pell Grants and NCMC scholarships.
“They look at these two old people going back to school to become paramedics and are like, ‘Yeah, let’s give them some money,” Wendy says. “We haven’t been in a school since the ’80s.”
The two programs — Michigan Reconnect and Futures for Frontliners — are similar, but do have their differences, especially when previous student loans are in play.
“When it comes to students who are in default of their student loans, which we have a lot of students who are in that category, they can still get assistance,” Claerhout says.
Futures for Frontliners requires applicants to apply for financial aid and if a student is in default, then they will not qualify for aid, making them ineligible for the program. However, students can be in default and still qualify for the Michigan Reconnect program.
“That’s a huge benefit, and that’s really smart by the state,” Claerhout says, “because if someone can’t pay their student loan bills, and they can’t get a better job because they can’t go back to school, you’re never going to be able to get with the state initiative, or their goals for that student, unless you ease off on something.”
MICHIGAN RECONNECT
Michigan Reconnect is a scholarship program that pays for in-district students’ college tuition and discounts tuition for out-ofdistrict students. Its Skills Scholarship component provides one-time grants for Michiganders to enroll in an approved training program.
The scholarship can be used to complete an associate degree or a skill certificate program.
To be eligible, one must: • Be at least 25 years old when applying • Have lived in Michigan for a year or more • Have a high school diploma or equivalent • Have not yet completed a college degree (associate or bachelor’s)
FUTURES FOR FRONTLINERS
Futures for Frontliners is a state scholarship program for Michiganders who haven’t earned college degrees and worked in essential industries during the state’s COVID-19 shutdown in spring 2020 (April 1–June 30). The program provides frontline workers with tuition-free access to their local community college to pursue an associate degree or a skills certificate, either full-time or part-time while working.
To be eligible, one must: • Be a Michigan resident • Have worked in an essential industry at least part-time for 11 of the 13 weeks between April 1– June 30, 2020 • Have been required by their job to work outside the home at least some of the time between April 1 – June 30, 2020 • Have not obtained an associate or bachelor’s degree • Not be in default on a federal student loan
