Prospectus News
Wednesday March 19, 2014 Volume 6, Number 9 Your source for Parkland College news, sports, features and opinions.
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Less alcohol-related issues seen during Unofficial 2014
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Student Government candidate statements
Lifestyle
News - Page 2
Resources for undecided majors at Parkland
Lifestyle - Page 3 Photo by Ted Setterlund/Prospectus News
Students began their celebrations for Unoffical during the day by dressing in green and heading out to the local bars on Green Street. The University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana was the first college to celebrate Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day back in 1996, due to St. Patrick’s Day falling on their Spring Break.
Opinions
Mace Mackiewicz Staff Writer
20th century travel technology in an advanced tech. world
Sports
Opinions - Page 4
Cobra Baseball hits the South
Entertainment
Sports - Page 5
Featured artist: The Chain Gang of 1974
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WASHINGTON - America’s colleges and universities are quietly shifting the burden of their big tuition increases onto low-income students, while many higher-income families are seeing their college costs rise more slowly, or even fall, an analysis of federal data shows. It’s a trend financial aid experts and some university administrators worry will further widen the gap between the nation’s rich and poor as college degrees - especially four-year ones drift beyond the economic reach of growing numbers of students. “We’re just exacerbating the income inequalities and educational achievement gaps,” said Deborah Santiago, co-founder and vice president of Excelencia in Education, a nonprofit group that advocates for Latino and other students. The shift also runs contrary to an Obama administration push to make a
college education more affordable for low-income students. At a White House summit in January, college leaders and others promised to find ways to make degrees more accessible for the less affluent. In fact, lower-income and workingclass students at private colleges and universities have seen the amount they pay, after grants and scholarships, increase faster than the amount their middle- and upper-income classmates pay, according to an analysis of data that institutions are required to report to the U.S. Department of Education. The net price - the total annual cost of tuition, fees, room, board, books and other expenses, minus federal, state and institutional scholarships and grants - rose for all students by an average of $1,100 at public and $1,500 at private universities between the 2008-09 and 2011-12 academic years, the most recent period for which the figures are available. At private universities, students
in the lowest income group saw the biggest dollar increase over that period: about $1,700, after adjusting for inflation, according to the analysis by The Dallas Morning News, The Hechinger Report and the Education Writers Association. Higher-income students paid more overall, but their costs rose more slowly - an inflationadjusted average of about $850 for middle-income families and $1,200 for those in the top income group. At private research universities, including many of the nation’s most elite, the net price rose by an average of $2,700 for the poorest families - those with incomes under $30,000 a year compared with $1,400 for their higherincome classmates. Those averages are also adjusted for inflation, and the sample is limited to students who received any federal aid. Experts and advocates concede that, as tuition spirals ever higher, even more affluent families need help paying for it, making the situation far
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Police Department, only 15 people were arrested this year and brought to jail on Unofficial. There were 115 tickets given for underage drinking, and 100 tickets were given out for people who had public possession of alcohol. There were also 40 calls for ambulances during Unofficial with 27 actual transports. “Campus actually seemed to be kind of tame at least that was my experience on Friday night walking with my friend. Although I did see quite a few police officers around that seems to be the norm during this holiday. I honestly had a lot of fun and I will probably go out again next year,” Theater major Kara Arnold said. Communications major John Larson had a different opinion of Unofficial as a whole. “I just don’t think it’s a very intelligent thing to do even for college kids. Spending all day drinking and getting messed up while there are cops everywhere just seems like a bad idea. I don’t think I will ever participate in unofficial if only because I don’t want to risk getting arrested,” Larson said. Regardless of opinions on the holiday it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be going anywhere anytime soon. It has become so popular that websites and vendors sell merchandise to students for Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day and the holiday has become a major pay-day for the bars and alcohol vendors in the area. For a press release of what happened during the Unofficial celebration on U of I’s campus, please visit http://bit.ly/1e0H0t2.
College costs rising more rapidly for poorer students, analysis shows Jon Marcus and Holly K. Hacker The Hechinger Report
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On Friday, March 7, 2014 the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana students others from around the area celebrated a holiday known as Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day. The 18th annual Unofficial celebration went off with what seems to be the least amount of incidents yet, but not without at least some hitches. Unofficial itself is celebrated on the U of I campus a week before the actual St Patrick’s day and students from surrounding universities show up and drink in excess on Friday. Some students even begin drinking before noon and continue to drink into the early morning of the next day. This type of binge drinking has been seen as hazardous to the students and the people around them so the town has tried to regulate it and curve the event so that it would be less impactful, but it just keeps getting bigger every year. One thing that deters some people from outside of campus from attending Unofficial is the lack of public parking on campus, with most of it being private. The threats of being towed on campus are a very real inconvenience that some people avoid it altogether. U of I campus during the celebration was bustling with students and law officials alike. The sidewalks were crowded with people bar hopping and walking to their next party destination. Green Street seemed to be the busiest street in town with students going between bars and restaurants as well as cops patrolling the area heavily. Springfield
and Kirby were also packed with students stumbling around in their green holiday gear. It wasn’t uncommon to see police officers talking to a group of students or the flash of lights from their patrol cars through campus. No roads were closed this year like they were a couple of years back indicating that there weren’t really any massive parties this time blocking the roadways. Instead there were a lot of little parties scattered and usually contained throughout the campus. One concern on Unofficial is underage people drinking which is why most bars change their rules so that customers must be 21 to get inside instead of the standard 19 and up that a lot of them hold throughout the year. “The bars were pretty busy this year, some of them were hard to maneuver in they were so crowded. It was hard to hear what anyone was saying and there was a lot of yelling but I suppose that’s part of the fun of unofficial. The only downside though was when someone got sick it was hard to avoid,” Graphic Design major Christopher Haga said. The bars this year were fairly restricted on what they could do on Unofficial as the mayor instituted some special rules to help with safety. Some of the rules included bars not being able to serve alcohol in pitchers, not being able to serve alcohol at all until after 10 a.m., stricter ID checks as well as many regulations on what kind of containers alcohol could be sold and contained in. According to a press release by the Champaign
Human blood is blue when it’s in your veins and turns red when it hits oxygen. (Find the answer on page 3)
Illustration by Rick Nease/Detroit Free more complex. Wealthier students still pay more for college educations, on average. But to help colleges maintain enrollment numbers, keep revenue rolling in and raise standings in annual rankings, these students are getting billions of dollars in discounts and institutional financial aid that many critics say should go instead to their lower-income classmates. See COST on P. 5