Tuition
these days is so ridiculously sky-high, I don’t think I could be able to afford
it.
AND
THAT’S TAKING into account that I was willing to take on some debt in the form
of student loans that put me through college – and took me some six years to
pay off. Nowadays, those loans would be so costly that I don’t think I’d ever
be able to pay them off.
But
the more serious problem these days is the fact that the political gamesmanship
taking place these days between Gov. Bruce Rauner on behalf of Republicans and
the Democratic legislative caucus led by Illinois House Speaker Michael
Madigan, D-Chicago, is interfering with the education process.
For
the budgets of the state’s publicly-funded colleges are NOT among the state
agencies and programs whose activities must continue even though the state is
now in month eight of the fiscal year without a balanced budget in place.
There
also are the private colleges being impacted, since many of their students rely
on financial aid to meet those costly tuition payments and those are government
programs that provide the aid.
THE
COLLEGES WENT forth with this academic year back in September making the best
of the bad situation, while also hoping that the political people would come to
their senses within a month or two.
Instead,
the political people seem determined to hold out. They’re not going to concede
a thing. They’re willing to make Fiscal ’16 the year that no budget was ever
approved – and show no willingness to make Fiscal ’17, ’18 or ’19 any
different.
The
situation at Chicago State University, which admittedly always faces slightly
more dire circumstances that most other colleges, is actually talking about
having to shut down.
Other
colleges might have to do mid-year layoffs that would affect their academic
departments. Now we see why the one thing Rauner did was to approve the portion
of the state budget for elementary education – just think how ugly it would be
if all schools across Illinois were threatened with closure?
COLLEGE
KIDS IN Illinois these days literally face the possibility of having their
studies interrupted because of the politicking going on. Considering that these
young people are supposed to be our future that relies heavily on the success
of their academic efforts, what kind of long-term damage is being caused?
Those
Chicago State students literally were picketing in the streets of downtown on
Monday – figuring they’d get more public attention there than they would down
at 95th Street and King Drive.
Although
I also noticed reports about a student rally held at Eastern Illinois
University in Charleston, where the local Republican state legislators it seems
were upset they were not permitted to speak during the event.
Organizers
said the rally was meant to be a student forum, not for the general public.
Although you have to admit, it would have been interesting to hear those
legislators try to justify themselves and their support for Rauner’s political
actions.
IT
ALSO WOULD have been downright ridiculous if one of those legislators had
managed to make a verbal gaffe that would have had statewide repercussions.
Which, considering the ineloquence of many political people, was too likely to
happen.
Those
legislators were saved from themselves; they committed the primary rule of
public speaking – they avoided saying something stupid!
This
uncertainty is headache-inducing for all. But particularly those students who
perceive their education beyond the upcoming weekend’s kegger.
Because
what happens to all our society if it turns out years from now that the young
people who spent their late-teenage years inhaling bongs accomplished more than
those whose efforts at self-improvement were thwarted because Rauner wants to
undermine organized labor’s influence within government?
-30-
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