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Exclusive content @
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
www.southerndigest.com
Volume 57, Issue 4
SU’s Joseph earns LSWA honor see Sports, page 5
Today
Fall student election capsules see State & Nation, page 6
SGA president discusses issues see Commentary, page 7
Officials seek to repair ravine Lauren Johnson
The Southern Digest
Many students walk the campus daily, but only a few notice the ravine located at the back of campus leading to the dormitories. The ravine has been a historical landmark for Southern University for many years. Funding a project to restore the erosion of the ravine has been an overlooked issue for the past couple of years, due to other issues that required the immediate attention of the university and demanded much of the school’s funding. Current plans to renovate the ravine consists of adding 150 feet of piping and a protective stone facing to help secure the adjustments, funded by the Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies in the state. Although this is the recommended plan there were several options given. The first was doing nothing and leaving the ravine as it is. The second option was to use sheet pilling, but was ruled out due to pricing, misalignment, high surcharge and vibrations interrupting embankments, soils, and nearby structures. The third option was to realign the ravine’s slope of 150 feet and fill it with earthen fill and rip-rap along the sloped area. This option was ruled out do to high cost of additional rip-rap. The final option was to replace the old drain with a
new drain, and slightly widen the exit of the channel but that too was ruled out due to having an overall better option. Five years of run-off later — including run-off caused by Hurricane Gustav and annual backwash from the Mississippi — the action of nature’s course was first noticed by Endas Vincent, the SU System’s director of facilities planning. “I noticed the ravine’s erosion by simply walking out there myself,’ Said Vincent. Vincent soon wrote a request for capitol funds estimated around $650 thousand and received it along with the aid from the Corps and the state, which totaled in approximately 35 percent of the balance needed to pay for these renovations. The ABMB engineers, a private engineering corporation that services Louisiana and Mississippi hired by the state, did a brief study revolving the erosion and later injected grout to stall the erosion, but now the erosion is getting worse. The ABMB engineers have worked on other major projects, such as the new Woman’s Hospital and many continuous flow intersections around the state. “I see the ravine having a constant problem with erosion, by the Mississippi River backing up,” Vincent said. “By later creating a lake, it will take care of future erosion to the ravine.”
Southern University officials said high-water events, such as the recent flooding of the Mississippi River (above), along with regular passage of water, has caused significant amounts of erosion in the ravine system that cuts through the campus. Officials are preparing to work on one stretch of the ravine — which forms the unofficial boundary between the “front” and “back” of the SUBR campus — hoping to mitigate years of erosion that could eventually damage Jessie N. Stone Avenue (left). The ravine system drains portions of northern Baton Rouge, and empties water into the Mississippi River near the university’s ROTC buildings. Heavy rains, along with backwash from the Mississippi, increases the amount of water flowing through the ravine. Above PHOTO BY david clark III/digest left photo courtesy of army corps of engineers
Student loan default rates increase sharply Justin pope
The Associated Press
The number of borrowers defaulting on federal student loans has jumped sharply, the latest indication that rising college tuition costs, low graduation rates and poor job prospects are getting more and more students over their heads in debt. The national two-year cohort default rate rose to 8.8 percent last year, from 7 percent in fiscal 2008, according to figures released Monday by the Department of Education. Driving the overall increase was an especially sharp increase
among students who borrow from the government to attend for-profit colleges. Of the approximately 1 million student borrowers at for-profit schools whose first payments came due in the year starting Oct. 1, 2008 — at the peak of the financial crisis — 15 percent were already at least 270 days behind in their payments two years later. That was an increase from 11.6 percent among those whose first payments came due the previous year. At public institutions, the default rate increased from 6 percent to 7.2 percent and from 4 percent to 4.6 percent among students at private not-for-
profit colleges. “I think the jump over the last year has been pretty astonishing,” said Debbi Cochrane, program director for the California-based Institute for College Access & Success. Overall, 3.6 million borrowers entered repayment in fiscal 2009; more than 320,000 had already defaulted last fall, an increase of 80,000 over the previous year. The federal default rate remains substantially below its peak of more than 20 percent in the early 1990s, before a series of reforms in government lending. But after years of steady declines it has now risen
four straight years to its highest rate since 1997, and is nearly double its trough of 4.6 percent in 2005. Troubling as the new figures are, they understate how many students will eventually default. Last year’s two-year default rate increased to more than 12 percent when the government made preliminary calculations of how many defaulted within three years. Beginning next year, the department will begin using the figure for how many default within three years to determine which institutions will lose eligibility to enroll students receiving government financial aid.
the official student newspaper of southern university and A&m college, baton rouge, louisiana
The figures come as a stalled economy is hitting student borrowers from two sides — forcing cash-strapped state institutions to raise tuition, and making it harder for graduates to find jobs. The unemployment rate of 4.3 percent for college graduates remains substantially lower than for those without a degree. But many student borrowers don’t finish the degree they borrow to pay for. The Department of Education has begun an income-based repayment plan that caps federal loan payments at 15 See Student Loans page 3