3/22

12:05 a.m. Rickard’s ruckus role

St. George, Maine native Megan Rickard, 18, was summonsed for illegal possession of alcohol by a minor after she was found to be intoxicated. The non-student was hitting her friends and making a lot of noise outside of the Bryand Global Sciences Center on campus, resulting in a disturbance call being sent to the University of Maine Police Department. Officers arrived to find Rickard with two of her friends who were trying to get her to go home. Rickard’s eyes were bloodshot, and she was acting very emotional. After interviewing each of the young women, Rickard was summonsed as well as given warnings for disorderly conduct and trespassing, the latter being in effect until May 18.

1:55 a.m. “How are we gonna smoke all this?”

An R.A. in Oxford Hall decided to call the police after noticing loud noise and an odor of marijuana coming from one of the rooms on the second floor. Once officers arrived, they started walking down the hall in an effort to pinpoint the source of the odor. Officers heard voices coming from one of the rooms, with a distinct line: “How are we gonna smoke all this?” Running with this clue, the police knocked on the door of the room. A female answered the door. The officer asked the male room resident to turn over the marijuana that he had. The student said that he couldn’t remember where he put it and wouldn’t let the officers into the room to search. There were a total of seven people in the room, three of whom were non-students and were given criminal trespass warnings. All seven were referred to Judicial Affairs.

3/23

12:19 a.m. First there were two…

An R.A. in Gannett Hall called UMPD after detecting a very strong odor of marijuana on the second floor. Officers arrived shortly thereafter and could smell marijuana being burned in one of the rooms. They knocked on the door and the residents of the room, Nicholas Zeleny, 19, and Elijah Silverman, 18, answered. There was a thick haze within the room as well as a strong odor of marijuana. The two residents were asked to turn over the marijuana and complied, handing over a jar with marijuana in it as well as a pipe with residue in the bowl. Zeleny was given a summons for sale and use of drug paraphernalia and Silverman was summonsed for possession of a usable amount of marijuana. Both were also referred to Judicial Affairs.

1:44 a.m. …and then there was one

Officers were dispatched to Cumberland Hall after they received a report of a strong smell of marijuana on the second floor. Officers found the odor to be coming from the room of student Cameron Nadeau, 19. The officers knocked on the door and asked Nadeau to turn over his marijuana. Nadeau complied, and was given a summons for possession of a usable amount of marijuana.

2:18 a.m. ’scroggin rager

UMPD responded to a report of a loud party on the fourth floor of Androscoggin Hall. The dispatched officer knocked on the door from which the noise was emanating. After someone answered the door, the officer could see a large group of people in the room and could smell a strong odor of alcohol. The group consisted of 10-12 people, with a beer pong table set up in the middle of the room. The party was cleared out with everyone receiving disorderly conduct warnings and the two room residents being referred to Judicial Affairs.

10:00 p.m. Dodgy doper

UMPD responded to a report of an odor of marijuana on the fourth floor of Knox Hall and searched the corridor to locate the source of the smell. Eventually they were able to narrow it down to a single room. After knocking on the door, a resident answered with a strong haze and odor of marijuana escaping the confines of the room. After realizing just who it was who was standing in the doorway, the resident quickly closed the door, refusing to cooperate. The officers left, with a referral to Judicial Affairs later being given to the room resident.

In the midst of a major change in housing policy on campus, the recently formed Residence Hall Association is now holding an election for a new president as well as other positions. Those who wished to enter had until Friday to petition to put their names on the ballot, although the deadline may be extended. The exact date of the election is not known at this point, only that it will be held within the next couple of weeks.

Formerly known as Residents on Campus, the RHA is the governing body of the residence halls on campus. As a student organization, the RHA is charged with advocating for the needs of students living on campus, with each hall featuring an ambassador who speaks specifically for the needs of those they represent. The organization recently made the switch to becoming the RHA in the hopes that they will be able to cooperate with other RHAs from other schools nationwide in an attempt to further improve on campus living across the country.

According to current UMaine RHA President Emily Farel, the on-campus living experience is paramount for student success.

“The proximity of everything is a big advantage,” Farel said. “It’s all just a short walk away … You don’t have to worry about going the grocery store to get food. It gives you little shortcuts.”

Farel is a fourth-year student studying physical marine science and has been the president for a year, which has been a beneficial experience in her eyes.

“[I’m] more outgoing than I was [before],” Farel said.

As RHA president, Farel has managed to build upon the ideas of former president Pat Hart by rewriting the constitution of the organization and aligning it with student government while also converting the organization from being Residents on Campus to the Resident Hall Association as a way of getting closer to the students.

“[Hart] had a vision of things being different,” Farel said. “[We’re] confident that we can transform ourselves to regain an identity that had been lost.”

“We are splitting away from student government to be more allied with res-life because it makes more sense,” Farel said.

This organizational shuffle is coming at a pivotal time for campus residents, as it has recently been declared that there will no longer be any residence halls for upperclassmen starting next semester. The sudden announcement of this policy change has left some upperclassmen scrambling to figure out where they are going to live next semester.

“I feel like it seems very drastic,” Farel said. “It wasn’t housing’s decision; it wasn’t auxiliary’s decision — it was something that [the board] felt needed to be done. How they handled it made sense … but it could have been done in a more eloquent way to make people understand what was being done.”

According to Farel, the RHA is doing all it can to assist struggling upperclassmen through this transition.

“We, for the moment, are the wealth of knowledge. If people ask, we can help them … We can direct people where they need to go,” Farel said.

Farel hopes that newly elected members will be able to push the organization forward and increase interest and participation from incoming as well as existing campus residents.

“It’s always a push to get people involved because we have been taking a back seat to [GSS],” Farel said. “I hope that [new members] can have positions in each complex filled and get more people to participate.”

Following the announcement of the University of Maine System’s $36 million budget shortfall for fiscal year 2015, there has been much speculation and fear. The prospect of cutting even more faculty positions as well as entire programs from the curriculum is something that no one wants, but in the eyes of the board of trustees, these are necessary measures that must be taken to fix the deficit.

The University of Southern Maine was the first to feel the sting of these budget cuts, with USM president Theo Kalikow announcing four full academic programs and between 20 and 30 faculty positions would be cut in an effort to chip away at the $14 million shortfall that USM must resolve.

In response to this announcement, around 125 students and faculty stood in protest on Monday, March 24 to show their displeasure. The group walked out of their classes midday and gathered outside of the University of Maine School of Law building on USM’s Portland campus, where the administrative offices are located. This resulted in the building being closed early.

Many of the protesters believe that the crisis is manufactured, and that the UMS has a large reserve of money saved that it isn’t willing to draw from. However, Kalikow insists that the crisis is real, citing the continuing freeze of state funding, tuition rates, dropping enrollment and an aging infrastructure on some campuses as primary reasons for the situation. Kalikow has also emphasized that this is a system wide problem, with all seven UMS campuses having to make sacrifices.

Jules Purnell is a USM student studying women and gender studies and feels that students should be more involved with decisions of this magnitude.

“We feel like we’re getting a lot of double-talk,” she said at the rally. “We need them to realize we need these faculty members and programs, otherwise our campus will be gutted and we won’t have any way of reaching the vision we’ve set forth for our university.”

Solidarity

After having witnessed the happenings in Portland, students on the Orono campus have started taking notice, with the announcement last week that UMaine would be signing with health insurance company Cigna, replacing its employee assistance program and student housing policy changes being the first of a raft of cuts and changes made to the campus structure.

On Tuesday, a small group of concerned students met in the Wade Center in the Memorial Union to discuss the problems facing the UMS and possible steps that could be taken. Leading members of various activist groups on campus were present, including members of the Maine Peace Action Committee and Samantha Perez, president of The Green Team. The group gathered with the intent to show solidarity with USM and support the cause of the students who are at odds with UMS administration about how things are being handled.

Perez, who led The Green Team in a meeting with the UMS board of trustees regarding divestment from fossil fuels last month, set up a Skype chat with Meaghan Lasala, a USM student who also participated in the protest on Monday. Lasala recounted the day when protesters attempted to occupy the Provost office in Portland.

“We feel that [the administration] stepped over students bodies rather than communicating with us,” Lasala said.

“They’re an inspiring group of kids down there,” Perez said of the protesters at USM. “I wasn’t going to get involved until it was announced that there would be cuts here.”

Perez mirrors Lasala’s thoughts regarding the way things are being handled by upper level administration.

“I think students are starting to get motivated. We need to start being included in decisions made at the university. That’s my main goal,” Perez said. “I don’t think we’re considered as main constituents.”

Perez hopes that by working together with students from other schools, a solution can be found that would nullify the need to cut programs and faculty.

“I think that all the departments are really important. We’ve been working so hard [for department collaborations]. Everything here is important or it wouldn’t be here. I can’t think of a single faculty member I’d like to see let go,” Perez said.

“We’re still at the research stage; we’re going to dive deep and get some options,” Perez said. “Hopefully the budget cuts won’t need to happen and the University of Maine System can have a brighter future.”

Legislative action

With the sponsorship of Representative Ben Chimpan of Portland, USM students drafted an emergency bill that was brought before the Maine Legislature on Thursday. The bill, if passed, would institute a one-year moratorium on layoffs and budget cuts by the UMS in the hopes that another solution could be found in the meantime. It also called for the creation of a stakeholders group of students and faculty that would study the system’s finances and make recommendations over the course of the moratorium.

However, because of the last minute proposal, the bill went before a 10-member group of legislative leaders who voted 6-4 to reject the bill, with those who opposed the bill arguing that passing the bill would be overstepping the bounds of their legal power.

“There’s a crisis right now in our public university system,” Chipman said at the council meeting. “Students and faculty are asking for our help, and I propose that we address this crisis now.”

Despite this setback, the student solidarity group, now called #UMaineFuture, is determined to continue its fight.

“If they don’t want to make it a legislative issue, then we’ll make it an election issue.” Shannon Brennan, a UMaine Orono student who is also an organizer for #UMaineFuture, said in a prepared statement after the decision.

Orono cuts announced

The University of Maine Orono’s original budget shortfall was estimated to be $12 million. After further analysis which included imminent retirements, this number has been lowered to $9.7, still a steep climb. On Friday, the university finally announced the cuts that it would be making in order to make up for this deficit.

Although no programs will be cut, 61 positions will be eliminated, 30 of which will be through retirements while the other 31 will be non-faculty positions with five of them being layoffs. $5.3 million will also be syphoned from a savings fund that has been built up over the course of the last decade. According to Vice President for Administration and Finance Janet Waldron, this will nearly deplete the savings fund, restricting the university’s ability to react in case of further financial emergencies.

Choosing a college major can be a daunting task for someone fresh out of high school. It’s a big leap to make at that time in one’s life. The economic problems of the last several years have not been of any assistance, with fears of underemployment, unemployment and mounting student debt driving some away from post-secondary education entirely.

In 2013, these issues really hit home for Los Angeles, Cal. resident Janice Partyka when her son was faced with the decision of what major to choose despite not knowing many people who had graduated with the majors he was considering. In an effort to help her son, as well as every other soon-to-be college student in the same predicament, Partyka created the website MajorsToCareers.com.

“[MajorsToCareers.com] is the first social media site focussed on majors,” Partyka said.

Partyka is an entrepreneur who has been involved with a number of different industries at different points in her life. After realizing her son’s issues, Partyka contracted a development crew and, along with her son, proceeded to create the website and “chunk the data” she deemed necessary for students to know.

“[MajorsToCareers.com] became my passion when I noticed my kids and their friends were having to pick their majors without knowing [where they would lead],” Partyka said.

In a world where Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have dominated the social media scene, the trait that sets MajorsToCareers.com apart is its focus on helping students fresh out of high school with choosing a career by linking them with former college students who have graduated and successfully joined the workforce with a job within their field of study. It also provides statistics regarding median and starting pay for over 100 occupations taken from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There are also brief descriptions of day-to-day tasks for each career option.

“Some things in the data are surprising,” Partyka said. “I was surprised to find that biology majors have a low employment rate.”

Partyka feels that this type of information is essential to students when they are browsing majors. The free-to-use service also connects users with graduates from around the country, a majority of whom welcome questions and are open to giving advice according to Partyka.

“My kids reached out to their friends, they reached out to other people. It just spread,” Partyka said.

According to a recent study out of Georgetown University, only 40 percent of Liberal Arts graduates currently hold a job related to their degree while 75 percent of engineers hold jobs in their related field.

Getting in touch with graduates in the field as well as students who are currently enrolled and completing the requirements of these majors allows potential students to get an idea of where a specific major will lead to out of school rather than going in blindly.

Zedric Joseph, 23, of West Palm Beach, Fl., is currently being held at the Richmond County Jail in Augusta, Ga. after being connected to a double stabbing in Florida, which resulted in the death of a 23-year-old man.

On Friday, March 7, deputies of the Florida sheriff’s office received a report of a stabbing on Quail Lake Drive in West Palm Beach. Two victims, a man and a woman, were found at the crime scene. The man, Ricardy Chery, 23, died from multiple stab wounds. The woman, Vashti Laurore, also 23, had been stabbed in the hand and was released from the hospital after being treated for her injuries at St. Mary’s Medical Center.

The Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office issued a warrant for Joseph’s arrest on Wednesday in connection with the stabbings. Joseph was arrested and brought to the jail at around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday. According to jail officials, Joseph was arrested on one count of murder and two counts of aggravated assault.

The West Palm Beach police are not releasing any more information to the public regarding the case at this time.

Joseph enrolled at UMaine in 2011 after spending two years at Erie Community College in Orchard Park, N.Y. to study child development and family relations. He is also a running back for the UMaine football team.

With the interconnectedness of today’s digital communication infrastructure, it has become essential to make cyber networks secure to protect vital information. In December 2013, it was reported that hackers had stolen the information of up to 40 million shoppers by hacking into the network of Target Corp., the third largest retailer in the United States.

The corporation did not realize what was going on until credit card processors noticed a surge in fraudulent transactions from credit cards that had been recently used at Target locations during the holiday season.

Preventing disasters such as these is the goal of the UMaine Cybersecurity Team, a group of students studying computer engineering and computer science that take what they learn in class and apply it to solving real world cyber security issues.

Second-year computer engineering student Benjamin Grooms is the captain of the current team and is in charge of network engineering on the team.

“[Competing] shows you have experience…and you’re much more likely to get [a job] in the field,” Grooms said.

The team competes against other schools in the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. In this competition, each team is charged with overseeing the security of the communications network of a hypothetical small company. These systems include basic internet and email services.

Teams have a limited amount of time to familiarize themselves with the security systems in place and must defend the system from a team of professional and military hackers who attempt to dismantle the system. The effectiveness of the team’s defense is then judged by a third party.

“They’re professionals. They know what they’re doing,” Grooms said. “No matter how good each school’s team is, the [hackers] are going to get in no matter what.”

On Saturday, the UMaine Cyber Defense Team qualified to compete in this year’s competition, which will be held March 14-16 at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH.

Most of the schools that Grooms and his team are competing against are NSA National Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance, meaning that they have academic programs specifically tailored to train students in the field of cyber security. UMaine does not have such certification, meaning that much of what the team has learned is self-taught.

“We do a lot of research online,” Grooms said. “There are no courses [at UMaine] that deal specifically with cyber security. There are many different courses that you can take knowledge from and apply it.”

Despite this handicap, Grooms feels that the team could do well.

“It’s intimidating, but in the past we have done well,” Grooms said.

The UMaine Cyber Defense team was formed in 2008, around the same time that the competition started to branch out to schools in the northeastern U.S.

Grooms got involved with the program during his freshman year and hopes that issues of cyber security will become more of a concern.

“A lot of people have seen the ordeal with Target … you would think they would have their stuff together and secure,” Grooms said. “Everyone can see the effects of people getting their information stolen … We’re attempting to be better prepared for a future where it’s even more important than now [to be secure].”

The other teams that UMaine will compete against are:

Alfred State University (NY)

Champlain College (VT)

Northeastern University (MA)

Rochester Institute of Technology (NY)

SUNY IT

Syracuse University (NY)

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (MA)

UMass Boston

It’s a typical afternoon at the Oakes Room in Fogler. Study groups are pouring over material for upcoming tests while others work away on their laptops with their favorite tunes blasting through headphones. Margaret Howson walks into the room for her next scheduled dose of caffeine.

She is dressed for business today, with a gray and white checkered skirt, fashionable sleeveless teal shirt and her sister’s four inch Italian pumps completing the look. Her long brown hair flows over her shoulders, parting to reveal a tan, youthful face. Her brown eyes dart around the room, analyzing her surroundings before turning to face the woman at the counter.

She’s been awake since 6 a.m. and will soon be preparing the UMaine College Republicans for the arrival of congressional candidate Bruce Poliquin for a roundtable discussion. As chairman of the organization, she needs to have her ducks in a row and be at her best. She needs caffeine.

“Can I help you?” asks the women behind the counter.

“Yes I’ll have a tea with two espresso shots, please,” Howson replies. Yes, two espresso shots.

Margaret Howson is a second-year student attending the University of Maine and is currently majoring in English and Psychology with minors in Political Science and Journalism. This is likely to change though, as Howson has recently found a home in the world of politics. Since entering the political arena at the beginning of this semester she has risen quite rapidly to prominence, her most recent triumph being the Feb. 5 Republican caucus in Hampden where she was elected chairman of the Hampden Republican Committee at the tender age of 20.

As a female college student with conservative values, Howson admits that she is a rare personality. According to a survey put out by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute in 2012, college students are becoming more and more liberal. This hardly comes as a surprise, as every generation has historically been more liberal than the last. Howson bucks this trend.

While most women her age are involved in sororities or going out and partying, Howson is constantly expanding her potential and hopes to one day represent Maine on the national stage.

“If I’m not married and don’t have children I’d love to be a representative for Maine in Congress,” Howson said. “I’d love to champion Maine’s people and speak for them and be their voice in Washington. If that doesn’t happen I’d be very happy being a local politician … white picket fence the whole way.”

A rare personality indeed among this generation.

“I’m an anomaly.”

Howson was born in Cleveland, Ohio and moved to Maine with her mother and two sisters at the age of 13. She attended and graduated from John Bapst High School, where her mother Joan teaches Latin. Her older sister, Charlotte is a UMaine graduate who has applied to law school, while her younger sister Maria may soon be joining Margaret at the university.

“[Maria] is going to be in [UMaine College Republicans] whether or not she bloody well wants to,” Howson said jokingly.

Howson and her mother have a very tight-knit relationship. She attributes many of her values as well as her drive for success to the way she was raised. To this day her mother has supported every decision Howson has made as well as the path that she is currently going down.

“My mom and I, we were middle children in our families, we’re the weird ones. We’re way too social it’s just something that happens in our family … I think I’m genetically predisposed to be social,” Howson said.

Howson loves talking to people, a trait that has been evident throughout her life. As a child, she would leave her mother’s side at the grocery store and talk to strangers. This social curiosity, coupled with a prodigious amount of energy, has led Howson to pursue a number of different activities ranging from student senate and jazz band to Taekwondo and horseback riding.

Her first year at the University of Maine was one of discovery. Having initially enrolled with undeclared status, Howson decided to pursue English and Psychology in the hopes of one day becoming a specialized psychologist, analyzing the effects of political speeches on audiences.

Howson couldn’t sit still. Whether it was her massive inner drive to explore and remain active, or simply a lot of caffeine, one can only speculate. The fact was, Howson wanted something she could really pour her time into.

Howson initially got involved as a way of educating herself. She feels that the current generation of students doesn’t pay enough attention to what is going on and that in order for them to understand they need to hear it from someone their own age. It is this realization that is pushing her forward.

She began her involvement by attending GOP meetings in her town of Hampden. She also got involved with the UMaine College Republicans, a group of like-minded conservative students who are actively trying to educate their peers about political issues. Howson started out as a secretary and quickly rose up to the rank of chairman thanks to her determination and ability to motivate others. Members of the Hampden Republican Committee soon took notice and wanted to expand Howson’s political activities beyond campus walls.

On Feb. 5, Howson was elected Chairman of the Hampden Republican Committee. It was her first time attending a Republican caucus and she did not know that she was in the running. She attended with several members of the College Republicans to show them how a Republican caucus operates when she found out that she was voted town chair.

One of her responsibilities as Chairman will be to head Hampden’s 23-member delegation at the GOP’s state convention at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor. The convention takes place April 25-27 and will be a huge step for Howson toward her goals. Not many 20-year-olds could stand this kind of pressure or attention. However, Howson’s remarkable drive and ability to juggle a seemingly endless amount of tasks may just see her through the challenges ahead.

“If I want to achieve my goals and actually hold an office that isn’t in a township, I have to prove myself. I prove myself by holding this office at a ridiculously young age,” Howson said.

In the end, one of the biggest supporters of her campaigns has been something we all take for granted: coffee.

“I’m not sure I have so much a circulatory system as a circulatory system dependent on coffee.”

“I’m not going to lie, I don’t have a social life. Getting coffee and talking to people about meetings is my social life,” Howson said.

Having a conversation with her is a form of acrobatics. As she bounces from one subject to the next, it becomes difficult to remember where the conversation began. One can only imagine the number of thoughts nagging at the back of her mind. Everyone has felt it. The feeling that one’s mind is being torn in too many directions.

Multiply this by five and that is what Margaret has to deal with, which is probably the most remarkable aspect about her.

There’s nothing on TV. It’s an interesting phrase considering that a standard Time Warner Cable subscription includes hundreds of channels in both standard and high definition. A quick scroll through the channel guide reveals a rich variety of networks that cater to all different walks of life. And yet, there’s nothing on.

The fact that so much of what is broadcast these days can be considered “nothing” is not good. Classic networks have been reduced to the point of producing sensational shows with the singular aim of producing viewing numbers rather than providing a truly original entertainment art form. The classic example is MTV, a station that seems to have forgotten exactly what made it a mainstay in cable television.

Recently, other networks have taken MTV’s lead and started producing reality shows depicting different occupations and lifestyles that exist across the U.S. At first glance this sounds like a good idea. Ice Road Truckers and Whale Wars are both hit shows.

The problem is that some of the more recent shows simply aren’t real. They may serve to inform the public that some of these jobs or lifestyles exist, but aside from that they are exaggerated dramatizations of the truth.

Appalachian Outlaws

This show aired in late 2013 on the History Channel and follows several groups of characters that harvest ginseng in the appalachian mountains in Virginia. It features quite a colorful cast of mountain folk as they fight to harvest the cash crop and sell it to outside sources. Because ginseng is becoming ever more scarce, there are a lot of confrontations on the show as the harvesters are very territorial and tend to get their crops from spots in the woods that they designate as their own.

Although it is an interesting look at a little known cash crop and those who harvest it, it wouldn’t be a show with that alone. The over-the-top conflicts that arise between characters are a huge red flag as to the authenticity of the series.

Here is the description for the episode titled “Tit for Tat” taken from the History Channel website:

“Tensions in the Appalachian Mountains are about to explode. Greg Shook and his truck get a reminder from the Simpsons, and their guns – outsiders best get out. A deal goes sour for ‘senging buddies Ron and Obie, and they come to blows. Tony’s only hope of filling an order comes from an unlikely ally, and after Mike Ross uses his tomahawk to send a message to the poachers raiding his family’s land — they return with an explosive reply.”

Without knowledge of the show’s premise, one would think that this description was for an episode of some show about narcotics dealers. The worst part is that there is no disclaimer stating that the show is a dramatization, leading the viewer into thinking that everything they are seeing is authentic.

This is the latest in a long line of these faux reality shows that have been proven to be false. “Amish Mafia,” “Moonshiners” and “Storage Wars” have all been proven as false by sources within the shows and, more importantly, common sense. The worst part is that these shows air on channels that are otherwise held in high esteem. “Amish Mafia” and “Moonshiners” both air on Discovery Channel, while “Storage Wars” airs on A&E.

Although these shows do have entertainment value, they could also potentially and inadvertently blight the reputation of these otherwise respected networks. Discovery Channel and History Channel have provided some excellent programming in the past that is both informational as well as entertaining. If these reality shows continue to spawn, these networks could eventually end up taking the same route as MTV.

Student loan debt has become a pressing national issue. Due to lack of competition in the student loan industry, interest rates are extremely high, so those wishing to seek higher education struggle to pay back students loans that they’ve been forced to take to pay for rising tuition costs.

Alternative methods of paying for college are a hot-button issue. One idea that’s being floated in roughly a dozen states is a system whereby students retroactively pay back their tuition costs without having to first accrue debt.

The “Pay It Forward, Pay It Back” scheme is a loan by another name. Students incur debt, without initially borrowing it, and then endeavor, through a ambiguously defined interest scheme tied to their income, to pay it back to the state.

Several problems quickly arise. For instance, who will front the initial bill for the first students participating in this program? Since this is a state-implemented program, presumably, taxpayers will be responsible for the value of a bond that will fund this.

Next, exactly how would the fiscal details of this work? There are two possible ways the principal debt could be repaid. First, the student would agree to pay back a percentage of his or her income over a set period of time, say 20 years. This model would not take into account at what point the principal was repaid, if at all. Or, students would pay back a percentage of their income for an indefinite amount of time, determined by how soon they could pay back the principal they borrowed.

In the case of the former, higher wage earners would be penalized for their success. For instance, an individual who made $30,000 a year, assuming they paid a 3 percent per year interest, would pay back $18,000 over 20 years. This amount is significantly lower than the average cost of four years of tuition.

Say a person makes a significantly higher salary — $200,000 annually. A 3 percent tax over 20 years would end in the individual paying $120,000 back. This is not only significantly more than a person making a lower wage, but also just barely meets the initial cost of four years of college.

Despite the fact that two people who attended the same college will have paid roughly the same amount in tuition, they will most likely end up repaying a disparate amount for the same education. This is hardly fair.

And, in both cases, the principal is barely repaid. So, who ends up paying the difference? Presumably, the taxpayers who had to foot the bill for the initial bond will also be responsible for this.

This system is ambitious, but rubbish. On a fundamental level, the fiscal policies that underlie it are flawed. It is hardly innovative. Essentially, it’s reverse Social Security. A pool, from which participants draw, exists. Later, they pay back into it. And we’ve seen how well Social Security has worked. This, which does not even have the initial funding of Social Security, cannot hope to be successful.

All this does is shift the primary debt-holders. In the current system, individuals are on the hook for money they chose to borrow. Under this system, taxpayers would be forced to foot the bill for state universities.

Katherine Revello

Opinion Editor

After five years of blame shifting, fear mongering and passing policies that have done nothing but exacerbate existing legislative shortcomings, the state of the union and the performance of the current administration is nothing short of dismal.

In the modern era, no economic recovery has been slower. Debt and deficits have never been larger. Power has never been more concentrated in the hands of federal bureaucrats both elected and unelected.

Responsibility for this appalling state of affairs lies solely on the shoulders of those government officials who have flagrantly abused the sacred trust of their office, traded votes for constituency favors and OKed profligate spending, whether through active voting or non-participatory acquiescence.

These abuses are numerous and egregious, but fixable. Foundational principles, such as those that underlie the American system, are greater than any ideological debate. America is a nation of ideas, and its legislation should be about adherence to meritorious concepts and nothing else. Equivocation, over party lines and for personal gain, must stop. It puts a stranglehold on the passage of meaningful reform and subjects the nation to programs that serve no purpose other than appeasing gambits.

Further, the executive is not a Machiavellian figure who must contemplate whether to win over the people’s votes by adoration or browbeating, nor is any other public official. American citizens should neither fear nor love any vestige of their government. It should be too innocuous for any value judgment to be made regarding any of its functions on any level.

Government, particularly at the federal level, should be like the steel girders that support skyscrapers — essential to the integrity of its function, but of no mind to any but the builders.

Effecting this paring down of government functions is simple. The federal leviathan must be suffocated. Funding to all but the most essential of agencies and departments can be made unnecessary by shuttering them. If legislative power is returned to the prerogative of individual states, who best know the needs of their residents, their existence becomes redundant, instantly and holistically solving the taxing and spending problems crippling the nation.

Currently, business is mired down by an unnavigable labyrinth of regulation. Almost all but the most cursory of oversight functions are unnecessary. The burden should rest with the states; it should not be placed on business owners who must struggle to bring their businesses into compliance. The cost of interpreting and adhering to regulation only drives up the cost of doing business. This has a ripple effect on hiring ability and the pricing of products. And these get passed on to the consumer.

This is a clear example of the problems endemic to modern legislative stratagems. In the name of some nebulously defined altruistic protectionism, government actually impedes private interactions conducted by citizens and, in doing so, tramples on their rights.

Really, this should be impossible because the federal government ought to be so weak that even its harshest actions are not a threat to private citizens. This is because federal bureaucracy, in its proper scope, manages the equal footing of states in the national spotlight. Adjudicating the legality of actions taken by private factions falls within the purview of the states.

This vision seems radical now. But this only proves how far America has drifted from its roots. However, they remain intact and healthy. Only the burgeoning stems carry rot. Now, while the haleness of the stock is uncompromised, is the time for action. Presently, all that is necessitated to restore collective harmony is a careful pruning. But, if left unchecked, this infection will corrupt the entire plant and bring it to such a state of sickness that nothing will be salvageable.