Unnatural disaster in our colleges: This editorial says it all!

[Sancho]

http://www.sptimes.com/2008/01/27/news_pf/Opinion/Unnatural_disaster_in.shtml

The worsening money crisis is a smack upside the head of the college classes.

By ERIN BELIEU, Special to the Times
Published January 27, 2008

I've lived in Florida for years now - I thought I was well prepared for disaster.
But at this moment there's a catastrophe descending upon us the likes of which I've never seen, doing statewide damage Floridians will pay for dearly in the future. This tempest, started in the eye of Jeb Bush, has picked up wind with Gov. Charlie Crist and is now blowing away not just the frame but the foundation of our state's higher education system. I don't know if there are enough D batteries in the world to power us through this mess and what it's going to cost Florida's citizens in the long run.
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So how did we get into this mess? It seems there's nothing like an election cycle to bring out the foolishness politicians are prone to when they see a citizen near a ballot box. The legislators have been busy for years promising the voter-friendly but fiscally unrealistic tuition guarantees that trap our state universities in a beggared position while relentlessly devaluing the quality of the degrees we confer. And please understand: Not all degrees are equal. Not by a mile. They're only as good or as worthless as the ranking of the school they're from. Ask anyone who's ever sat on a law school or MBA admissions committee - they skim the cream from the competitive schools right off the top and shelve the rest without even cracking the files. As my mother is fond of saying, "You can go broke buying bargains." Unfortunately that's exactly what's happening with all the rate guarantees the Legislature has attached to Florida's Bright Futures and pre-paid tuition programs.
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'll make a deal with Gov. Crist and the rest of the crew at the Capitol. If we can put another initiative on the ballot - one requiring every Florida politician, lobbyist, member of a Realtor's group and wealthy Florida landowner to guarantee that their kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews will all spend four years in our state university schools - then they can have my vote. Something tells me a lot of our educational budget horrors would be solved and very quickly if state higher education were an issue that truly affected these people's families and the opportunities for their children's future. I have no idea where I would find the desks for those kids, but I promise to try.

[XanaDUer]

1. Shit!

I just read this! This is awful-I lived in FL for years and went to school there, too, and this is awful.

I had not lived there the last three years, but I applied for university jobs and the funding kept falling through. Now I know why.