WHAT! Gas is $4 gallon, where? Try $4.99 in So Cal for premium. But I love it, more people are car-pooling, not taking unecessary trips, using mass transit, dumping their Hummers, Range Rovers and Suburbans for Smart Cars and other little cars. Life is good in So Cal once again. I think that $5 is working for me but I would not really care if gas was $25 but I think the right price is $6-7 to really get people to change without damaging the economy. But lets think of the money, I don’t have to take toll roads anymore because the free roads are not as crowded so I’m saving money, I don’t have to sit in traffic so I get better gas mileage at 65mph than at 5-20mph, I spend less time driving so I can spend more time doing something I rather do, the air is less poluted as there’s less cars on the road and the ones there are much more effecient. Also there’s all this research on alternative fuels. Heck, one look at the Honda Clarity will change your mind about high fuel prices, a mid-size car, 70+ mpg and zero polution. Then consider the tax savings if the government doesn’t have to constantly build new roads, widen old roads. Then by not using so much gasoline, we will get off our dependance on foreign oil. So while it inconveniences us to pay more now, in the long run, it will be worth it and I’m already seeing the benefits big time.
Many students today believe they are entitled to a degree just by paying their tuition and showing up for class half the time. Yet, today’s students are just as capable as those students of 43 years ago. It’s the mind set that they have.
Might be the college…I know MIT where my daughter goes…those students sure don’t have attitude. Most LOVE to learn.
I’ll let you know about Dartmouth next year…My oldest son starts there in the fall.
When I lived in Manchester I made a donation to buy one of the bikes for the bike patrols. There are about 10 (maybe even 20 ) now. I talked with a couple of those cops…They make so many more arrest then they ever did on foot…even more then they did in a patrol car. And one guy I talked to started the bike patrol at 6’3…240…one year later he was down to 190.
Mike, you make that almost sound like a win-win situation. I guess the police on foot and on bicycles can radio officers in cars and on motorcycles for support. Who could have forseen that bit of logic? I wonder how much money the Manchester community saves on the 190 pound officer’s health insurance benefits. We could add indirect tax savings to the list of Things You Can Like About $4 Gas.
Fresh off the press: The governor of Utah is adopting a four day work week for all state employees except public safety workers.
An interesting book about the educational situation is “Declining by Degrees”, a book of essays edited by Richard Heresh and John Merrow. One problem is that many institutions compete for students (MIT and Dartmouth are probably exceptions). The U.S. News and World Report annual rankings of colleges include degree completion rates. This puts pressure on institutions to lower the bar.
I found an article in a 1947 Collier’s magazine about the effect of the returning G.I.'s on the University of Iowa campus. Many of these students were living with their families in crowded trailers and a group of trailer shared a common bath house. One professor was quoted as saying that a paper that would have been awarded an “A” before the war would be lucky to earn a “C” after the wave of G.I’s enrolled on campus. The G.I. bill was helping with the education and the servcemen appreciated this. Many were first generation college students. Now, many institutions are building luxurious suites to attract students to the dormitories. I think that many institutions encourage this feeling of entitlement that all too many students seem to have.
As someone who works in higher education, I disagree on a couple levels. With all of the recent budget cuts to public colleges and universities, we are turning away students and raising admission standards, not competing for students and lowering standards. Second, our low degree completion rates are normally a sign of our high standards. Personally, I would look at these ratings and would be likely to choose a school with lower completion rates since it would probably be a better school. However, since there are some schools that are trying to improve graduation rates without lowering standards, this measure of success really becomes subjective.
A more effective comparison to look at is the ratio of SAT scores compared to GPAs (grade point averages) of graduates. This is a more objective measure of standards. At the school with the higher ratio (SAT/GPA), it is harder to get an A, so they likely have higher standards.
Fifteen or 20 years ago, some student in a community college in California who was barely maintaining a C average, faked a transcript and letters of recommendation and was admitted to Yale. He would have graduated with a B average, but talked too much about how he was admitted. In his last semester, Yale caught up with him and threw him out. Yale was threatening a law suit against the student for “stealing an education”, but apparently thought better of the idea.
I also work in higher education and have for 43 years. What has really grown in many colleges and universities is the number of administrators, way out of proportion to the number of faculty. If I were in the state legislature, I would ask the state universities and colleges for the ratio of teaching faculty to administrators.
I know several people who drive to work who make $8 and support a family. They carpool. No one in the carpool makes more then $10/hr. There are 5 of them. And the gas prices drastically effect them.
One thing that is happening today and will grow is the use of networked computers. More people are doing their work for their companies from home. The company does not have to provide space for the individual and saves on heating, air conditioning, lighting and cleaning costs. The individual saves on transportation to and from work.
My son is working on an advanced degree. He is taking a course which is partially on-line. This saves him a 30 mile round trip commute to campus. He really would rather have the classroom environment, but for this particular class, he is happy to be able to do most of his work from home and not have the driving costs.