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Perspectives
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Sarah Kickler
EDITORIAL EDITOR
Mike Schmierbach
NIGHT EDITOR
Holly Sanders
Proposed changes to financial aid legislation
would help hanks hut hurt students
t’s unfortunate that this society places
greater emphasis on profit than it does
on education. It’s even more unfortu
-JL nate that few pay attention to this dis
turbing pattern until it personally affects
them.
A week ago yesterday, the House Rules
Committee ensured that college students
will have a personal stake in the matter.
Late last Tuesday evening, they added pro
visions to the Higher Education Act that Ed
Dennis of the Oregon Student Association
predicts “will cost students billions."
This is important not simply because it
will cost most of us a lot of money, but also
because it reflects a larger trend in Ameri
ca: selling out politically
marginalized groups to
generate more profit for
the powerful. In this case,
the starving student is be
ing asked to carry more of
a burden to help that most
impoverished of citizens
Jeff
Shaw
— me uamcer.
Here's what’s happen
ing. The act would have
decreased the interest
rates on your student
loans by almost a full percentage point. But
the added provisions, pushed by banking
industry lobbyists, would eliminate that
rate cut.
That means two things. Obviously,
you're not going to see much-needed re
ductions in the cost of interest on loans.
More insidiously, other added provisions
could result in a serious funding crisis for
important student aid programs. Accord
ing to Dennis, programs at risk include Pell
Grants, state need grants, campus child
care, greater reporting of campus crimes
and improved delivery of financial aid.
As if that weren’t bad enough, another
added provision would eliminate bank
ruptcy protection for student borrowers. So
even if you have trouble paying back your
loans, declare bankruptcy, and go through
five years of court-monitored Chapter 11
protection — you’ve still got your loans. As
Dennis notes, this is “an obligation not ex
pected in any other commercial loan agree
ment.”
I hope every loan recipient who reads
this is angry enough by now to take action.
If you’re not, maybe this will help: You
have to pay more in order to help subsidize
an industry that is making record profits —
the banking industry. Banking industry
profits hit an all-time high of $48.8 billion
in 1995, and they’ve been climbing ever
since.
It’s very simple: Banks exist to make
profit. If rates are high, so are profits. If they
can force even bankrupt students to main
tain their loan obligations, all the better for
industry. All the worse for the people.
To say this is un-American is not an ex
aggeration. Thomas Jefferson liked to warn
about the rise of “banking interests” and
“moneyed incorporations" which, even in
his time, threatened the advance of democ
racy. Jefferson, like many of those who
founded this country, believed that
“democracy dies as inequality grows.” A
banking industry which sought profit
above all, Jefferson wrote, was “more dan
gerous to our liberties than standing
armies.”
Even Jefferson didn’t go as far as Andrew
Jackson. Jackson raged against the Second
Bank of the United States, which he said
existed to “make the rich richer” at the ex
pense of “farmers, mechanics and labor
ers." Neither of these men would deny
bankers the right to make a living — but to
shift payment burdens onto impoverished
people in a time of record corporate prof
its? If the HEA passes these provisions, one
can add “students” to Jackson’s list with no
problem whatsoever.
The banking industry is ignoring simple
and reasonable principles here: Education
is a valuable thing. People are more impor
tant than profit. Actions should be judged
by the value they bring to a community.
Of course, maybe bankers have simply
lost touch with those principles. When
Wells Fargo took over First Interstate Bank,
CEO Paul Hazen announced at a news con
ference that 9,000 workers would be laid
off. When he was asked if fired workers
would be retrained to avoid fast food jobs,
he responded: “I don’t think McDonald’s is
necessarily a bad place to work.” That is
the kind of attitude you expect from some
one who doesn’t care about something that
doesn’t personally affect him.
Students or not, we all have a personal
stake in this. The Alliance to Save Student
Aid has set up a hotline at 1-800-574-4AID.
Use it to make a free call to Congress. Tell
them what you think about cutting student
aid. If people like Paul Hazen aren’t in
touch with the consequences of their ac
tions, it’s your job and mine to fix that.
That's what democracy is all about.
Jeff Shaw is a columnistfor the Emerald. His
columns appear on alternate Wednesdays.
His views do not necessarily represent those of
the neivspaper.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
NCC irony
I am prompted to write because of the ironic timeliness
of your cover story about Northwest Christian College
(ODE, April 29) coupled with my subsequent reminisc
ing about my personal relationship with NCC. The article
seems ironic to me in the midst of Pride Week at the Uni
versity, during which students celebrate the diversity of
gay. lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students. Your
article states that at least one NCC professor wanted “stu
dents to have an appreciation, respect and tolerance for
those who aren’t like them." This seems ironic, for the
most part, because my personal encounters with NCC ad
ministrators have led me to believe that this egalitarian
desire is manifested in neither the policy nor the practice
of the college, though it is possibly a convenient lip ser
vice for Christian love and equality.
I moved to Eugene in September 1996 with the hope of
transferring to NCC to complete my undergraduate de
gree. At that point, 1 thought they might be able to offer
the program of study most appropriate for my goal of en
tering seminary. When 1 told the admissions cabinet at
NCC that I was a lesbian, however, they denied my appli
cation for admission. After several months of written and
personal conversations with the administration of NCC,
Randy Jones, vice president of admissions, wrote to me
that the college had denied my application because “the
college’s stated policy and the ethos on campus with re
spect to homosexuality are decidedly incongruent with
my own lifestyle.”
I wonder how the University, with a stated (and pre
sumably enforced) policy against discrimination based
on sexual orientation, could have a reciprocal sharing
program with a college that actively practices such dis
crimination. I also wonder how NCC’s own mission state
ment of serving "Christ, the church and the community,
locally and globally” is fulfilled by denying gay and les
bian members of the local community access to their pro
grams of study.
It seems appropriate to me that the University review
its relationship with NCC in light of the fact that NCC’s
discriminatory admission practices are in direct opposi
tion to the University's own policy regarding such. I
would also like to suggest, as I have repeatedly in private
forum, that the administration of NCC review their own
policies in this manner.
Kharma Amos
Religious Studies
OSPIRG helps students
In the words of Zack De La Rocha of Rage Against the
Machine, “In the right light, study becomes insight.” Be
ing a little “fresh” to the whole OSPIRG situation, I began
to ask a lot of questions. To those of you who voted OS
PIRG down last week simply because you saw some
posters that sounded like they made sense, I am sorry. I
am sorry that you did not take the time that I and others
have taken to discover some real honesty.
See, had you taken the time to ask around (and I didn't
just ask the PIRGs), you would have discovered that the
reason OSPIRG does not go to the lovely Programs Fi
nance Committee every year is so that they can keep
themselves and their message accountable to you. The
reason is not that they have this huge, outrageous budget
that robs the students and might save a mink or two up in
Portland. The reason is that OSPIRG wants to get out
there in the mix of this campus, talk to students and, in
doing so, make sure that the organization is fighting for
what the students want them to. You know as well as I do
that the cause they are working for is the good one, and
the work they do on a grand scale is amazing. They are re
searching pesticide use at the University; they are push
ing .to protect endangered species; they do several
cleanups each year; they conducted the Eugene banking
survey and distributed the Renter's Rights Handbook and
so much more — all this for you at the price of a latte.
No public interest group that voluntarily places itself
on the ballot every other year and that respects the demo
cratic process would stay on a campus where the students
did not vote to fund it. And so OSPIRG leaves us (unoffi
cially). Our voice that carries out concerns statewide is
gone. That concerns me, especially when voters may have
been told by poll workers to vote no on OSPIRG at the
polling booths, a violation that would send somebody to
prison in any other election. So, if any of the grievances
filed are honored and we do in fact see another election,
take the time to find out what’s up and make an educated
decision vote yes on OSPIRG. Let’s not be the genera
tion of students who upsets 27 years of positive student
activism and progress. “Ignorance has taken over; we got
ta take the power back.”
Jessica Timpany
Political Science/PPPM