Tuesday April 2, 2013 year: 133 No. 47
the student voice of
The Ohio State University
www.thelantern.com
thelantern OSU not yet ‘worthy’ of championship talk
sports
Dan HoPe Oller reporter hope.46@osu.edu
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Whether Urban Meyer likes it or not, the expectation has been set for him to make the national championship in his second season as Ohio State’s football coach. The Buckeyes’ last national championship came in 2002, Jim Tressel’s second season as OSU coach. Meyer won his first national championship at Florida in his second season as their coach. Furthermore, the Buckeyes were the only undefeated team in the Football Bowl Subdivision last season, finishing 12-0 although they were banned from postseason play. Those expectations, however, aren’t coming from Meyer. “I’m a realist,” Meyer told The Lantern in an exclusive interview Monday. “I know as of April 1, we’re not worthy of that conversation.” Meyer acknowledged there are people in the program that do have national championship expectations but said the team’s primary goal should be competing for the Big Ten title, since even one loss could take the chance to play for a national championship out of their hands. “I’ve heard these people say our goal is a national championship,” Meyer said. “No it’s not, because what happens if you have two injuries or bad chemistry on your team? Do you not play the rest of the year? We want to compete for championships in November.” Meyer, who is entering his 12th season as a college football head coach, said he has “never not had a team compete for a championship in November.” He won two Mountain West Conference championships at Utah and two Southeastern Conference championships at Florida, but has never had a team finish lower than third in the division of its conference. Meyer said he “thought we would be able to get this thing going
thomas writes editor a letter OSU junior forward Deshaun Thomas wrote a letter to the editor about supporting OSU athletics.
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anDreW Holleran / Photo editor
osU coach Urban meyer answers a question during an april 1 interview with The Lantern at the Woody Hayes athletic Facility.
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USG leaders given more perks than B1G equals liZ yoUng Asst. sports editor young.1693@osu.edu
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‘buckwild’ star dies
One of the stars of the MTV show ‘Buckwild’ died after driving off-road.
campus
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brutus takes the lead
A new app has a virtual Brutus lead people around OSU’s campus.
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Compensation (in the thousands) for USG presidents at Big Ten universities
The Ohio State Undergraduate Student Government president and vice president receive far greater compensation for their work than the elected officials at six of the other 11 Big Ten universities. While several other schools also offer financial benefits to a select few of their executives, only OSU offers a scholarship equal to the cost of in-state, fulltime, undergraduate tuition, room and board up to the cost of the least-expensive four-person resident hall room arrangement and the cost of books and supplies, according to OSU’s guidelines for USG presidential and vice presidential scholarship. The monetary value of the scholarships changes from year to year. The budget for books, supplies and tuition is determined by Need Analysis, while University Housing determines the room and board fees, for which the credit need not be applied to on-campus housing, according to the scholarship guidelines. The tuition portion of the scholarship includes mandated fees such as those for Central Ohio Transit Authority, student activity, recreational sports and Ohio Union, but does not include optional fees like student health insurance, student legal insurance, parking or athletic tickets. The USG president and vice president are permitted, however, to purchase a faculty parking permit although they have to pay the faculty rate of $756 annually, according to the guidelines and the OSU CampusParc website. Tuition and fees for an Ohio resident for the
OSU Undergraduate Student Government President Taylor Stepp and Vice President Josh Ahart receive more compensation for their work than those in similar positions at other Big Ten universities.
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Jackie storer / Managing editor of design
2012-13 school year cost $10,037, and room and board for the least-expensive four-person residence hall room cost $5,620 for two semesters. Books and supplies cost about $1,248 for the academic year, totaling $16,905 for the year, according to OSU Undergraduate Admissions website and the University Residences and Dining Services website. The funding for the scholarships comes in part from the Richard Mall Scholarship Endowment and in part from the Office of Student Life, according to
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the scholarship guidelines and Student Life director of student activities and orientation Matthew Couch. USG President Taylor Stepp, a third-year in public affairs, said that the scholarship does give him more freedom to fill his duties. “It does certainly help me represent students given the fact that I don’t have to take on a huge amount of debt,” Stepp said.
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2.5% of OSU students default on loans JoHn Wernecke Lantern reporter wernecke.5@osu.edu
Ohio State students have a lower rate of loan default compared to students at other nationwide universities. OSU President E. Gordon Gee said a lower than average number of OSU students default on their debt. Of the 11,557 OSU student borrowers who began repayment in 2008, the year the Department of Education began its tracking, 604 have entered into default within two years which means OSU’s rate is roughly 2.5 percent. OSU’s three-year rate was 5.3 percent. Gee said in an interview with The Lantern editorial staff on March 25 that OSU students repay their debts at a very high rate, but the national federal student debt is an ugly picture. “We have $1 trillion in student debt, that’s kind of like a housing bubble,” Gee said. “There are a number of institutions where the numbers have gotten up into the teens or even the 20s and that is very unhealthy for our economy, so we need to focus on that.” Hoewever, some OSU students said repaying their debts can be difficult. “I’m going into med(ical) school so I’ll have tons of debt, basically,” said Thomas Smith, a first-year in
anDreW Holleran / Photo editor
osU President e. gordon gee said a low number of osU students with loans default on their debt in an interview with The Lantern on march 25. psychology. “I have a job during the summer and I have a job right now so I’m constantly trying to pay off what I owe. You kind of accept it.” Doug Harvey, associate bursar at OSU, said the low rate is the result of consistent communication between his office and the students. “We have an internal collection policy where we’re very aggressive
about trying to reach out to those students and make phone calls, send letters, make sure that if the student is going to move on to graduate school or some other type of educational activity that they seek and apply for a deferment for which they might be eligible.” Harvey said. Harvey said students who communicate with the bursar’s office
are the most likely to pay their loans off without issue. “We often find that a student may be past due on a loan and just not know that they have some options,” Harvey said. “If we can explain those options, we can work with them to get the situation rectified.” The unpaid loans don’t just affect students in debt. “Students are going broke to go to schools and schools are going broke,” said Timothy Sharp Jr., a graduate student in art education. “Somewhere there is a missed connection.” The national rate of student loan defaults within three years of their first repayment was 13.4 percent, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education. During the same time period, public institutions had a default rate of 11 percent, private nonprofit institutions had a default rate of 7.5 percent, and for-profit institutions had the highest rate with 22.7 percent. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education, student debt has nearly tripled to $966 billion over the past eight years. The university has also faced financial problems with shrinking funding from the state. “That has happened at a lot of public universities around the country,” Gee said. “We belong to the people of the state. They love us but they don’t fund us.”
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