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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (July 13, 1976)
noerald An Independent Newspaper Vol. 78, No. 2 Eugene, Oregon 97403 Tuesday, July 13, 1976 Photo by Perry GasM N.Y. rep visits tall timber Oregon congressperson Jim Weaver (right) shows New York congressperson Fred Richmond core sample of Oregon s famous Douglas Fir. Fourth district representative Weaver invited the Brooklyn freshman to see the Willamette National Forest first hand before voting on the timber bills facing the House Agriculture Committee Before today," said Richmond, "I though clearcutting was out. But after visiting these clearcuts, I can see that our national forests can be managed as tree farms with proper professional supervisions." Student shot, suspect arrested A 24-year-old University stu dent was shot and fatally wounded 10 p.m. Saturday in an attempted robbery of Tom’s Mar ket at 19th Avenue and Agate Street. Dead is Eric Carsten Thede of 1475 E. 19th Ave., Eugene. The former geography major originally came from Santa Barbara, Calif., and was working as a clerk at the market. Poiice apprehended 20 - year - old suspect Robert Alan Arm strong, of Bakersfield, Calif., around midnight in a nearby apartment. Armstrong offered no resistance, and police reports say the firearm was recovered. He is being charged with armed robbery and murder. Arraignment was scheduled for Monday. Ad deadline misprinted We regret that we published the wrong deadline for clas sified ads in our July 6 issue. We should have said that the deadline is Friday 1 p.m. So, relax. You ve got another day to get in those Personals. V J Voucher tuition system tied to consumerism By MARTHA BUSS Of the Emrald While the issue of rising tuition rates has enjoyed a bright spot light of discussion during the past school year, another aspect of the tuition question is slowly edging on stage. The idea of replacing the present method of public funding for postsecondary education with a voucher tuition system is under discussion in the Legislative In terum Subcommittee on Post secondary Education. Under a voucher system, the public funding which currently goes immediately to the State Board of Higher Education or to the individual institutions would channel directly to individual stu dents. Every high school graduate would receive a voucher, or "port able grant." which could be ap plied to any institution in the state for postseceondary education. The institutions, both pubic and private, would therefore rely heav ily on the consumers of their pro ducts (the students) for a major portion of their financial re sources Such a state level voucher sys tem would resemble the present federal - level Basic Educational Opportunity Grant (BEOG) prog ram, which allots a quaified stu dent up to $1,400 for his post secondary education, to be ob tained wherever the student chooses. Roy Lieuallen, chancellor of the board, explains the whole voucher idea as “placing in the hands of the students a requisition for ser vices at an institution, rather than appropriating money to the institu tion. The voucher would not be cashable at the bank, and you couldn't buy a hamburger with it." While any voucher system is a distant possibility at the Univer sity, both pros and cons toward the subject are already well formu lated. Lieuallen says he has “no quarrel" with the voucher idea, but has not yet seen any specific voucher plan which he approves of In fact, he "vigorously and strenuously" opposes the specific voucher plan currently before the subcommittee because he fears it would raise tuition rates. This plan was presented to the subcommittee June 24 by Stafford Hansell, director of the State Ex ecutive Department and a member of the Oregon Educa tional Coordinating Commission. Hansell claims the plan would provide the following: • Reduce student fees during the first two years of postsecon dary education. • Expand consumerism by al lowing students to “shop around" for the school of their choice. • Expand access to a broader range of postsecondary institu tions. • Contain rapidly expanding education costs. • Allow greater student sharing of graduate and professional edu cational costs. In effect, Hansell’s plan would save the state approximately $9 million a year in funding students in the Oregon State System of Higher Education (OSSHE), while it would pay considerably more toward community and indepen dent colleges. Lieuallen objects to this plan because this $9 million now coming out ot state funds would have to come from the poc kets of OSSHE students. “The students would get ripped off," he says. In addition to the raised tuition which would result from Hansell’s plan, Lieuallen disagrees with the idea of "greater student sharing for graduate and professional educational costs.” He fears that advanced research and “needed but high-cost instructional prog rams would suffer greatly if stu dents were required to pay more for their advanced studies. John Wish, a University as sociate professor in marketing, of fers another view on this idea of greater student shanng for ad vanced studies. According to Wish, a voucher plan which would appropriate enough money for no more than four years of postsecondary edu cation to every resident student would “enable us to keep track of the perpetual student." Such perpetual students, Wish fears, usually come from rich families which can support the higher costs of advanced study themselves. The problem, he says, is that advanced study prog rams are now ironically funded more by the state than are under graduate programs and therefore “the poor and middle class are taxed to subsidize the rich.” Wish cites the case of a medical student to substantiate his point. He says that the state approp riates approximately $12,000 a year toward the medical student, who eventually ends up in the top two per cent of the nation’s in come bracket. Wish considers such training as medical, law and MBA to be personal investments which should stem solely from the involved students themselves. “There has to be a time when students stop feeding at the public trough,” he says. Wish says he bases his arguments for a vou cher tuition system on principles of equity. Lieuallen counters this argu ment by saying the advanced levels of study should not be re stricted to the rich and that they are vital to a university commun ity. If approved by the Legislature, the plan presented by Han sell to the subcommittee would be ph ased in over a two-year period, beginning in 1978. Although the plan is far from securing legisla tive approval, Lieuallen thinks students should be aware of the possibility of a voucher system now so that they can voice their opinions on it before it is approved and thereby too late.
