Student Aid

Most students attending college for the first time share the common worries of paying off loans. Such is the case with Jackson Whalan, a 18 year old freshman attending the New School in New York City. With the universities cost floating around the $50,000 range, loans are a necessary evil. Jackson remarked that "schools expensive for my family, we give up a lot to keep me here and loans are what gets us by." This dependency on loans to attend school requires students to leave after school with debt to pay off and a job to look for. The recently passed student loan bill is an effort to alleviate some of the load students face regarding debt.

The bill itself consists primarily of amendments to the preexisting Higher education act which sought to increase and improve the resources the United States government shelled out for students wishing to move past secondary schooling. The act also helped enhance already existing libraries and resources in colleges and universities. This move towards increasing the governments involvement was carried out in 1965 and since then has gone through many reauthorizations to continue educational growth in the U.S.

What's important to note is the push towards federal funding's involvement in schools. After the devastation of losing the race to put the first satellite into orbit. The United States recognized an increasing need for higher education, primarily in the scientific sphere. It had a profound effect on the necessity for the government to be more proactive in school funding as a means of generating progress for the nation. This rather dormant idea has again been pushed to the political foreground with the new amendments and the passing of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act.

Decades ago however the process of more affordable and reliable student funding was started with the GSL program (Guaranteed Student Loans). This sought to make it possible for students take out loans without any credit check to hold them back. It cut the rates that banks could charge for interest on loans and required that all banks offer the same rates for students loans.

With all banks using the same interest rates, "When students picked the lender from which they wanted to borrow they would decide based on their or their parent’s prior banking history, the location of the bank branch or which bank offered them a free Frisbee." Said Bill Mack of Financial Aid Experts, Inc. What this enabled the government to do was "provide students with a loan program without needing to raise the capital needed to fund the loans," as well as allowing more freedom for students in choosing a bank to invest with.

What we see enacted in the new bill is to further increase the funding the government will put towards federal grant programs as well as lowering the cap on monthly federal loan payments from 15% down to 10. In other words the bill will help to provide more federal loans as opposed to private loans offered previously only by banks. It will also attempt to lower how much those people with loans have to pay back each month, cutting down on the total cost of going to school. These amendments shift the bulk of the costs required to attend post secondary schools more in the hands of federal funding. This will make loans more affordable but also support an even better guarantee regarding loans than the GSL program.

On a final note by putting the cap for student loans down 5% the educational committee hopes to push students to pay off their loans. If students keep up with the payments, after 20 years their debt is forgiven. If enlisted in the military or a public service field the debt is forgiven in just 10. These changes will not only help to lower costs for the students and guardians taking out the loans but also for the tax payer as well. According to Nancy Pelosi speaker in the U.S House of Representatives, "this act will save taxpayers $61 billion over the next 10 years and will reduce the deficit by a minimum of $10 billion over the same period of time."

The student loan program is a small step for the United States towards a progressive educational funding system, but a large step forward for students looking towards college. More support may be necessary but this bill may prove to be effective in making college a possibility for more students.

Kill the T.V

People functioned for thousands of years without television, the internet, or any electronic screen for that matter. Now it seems we can hardly peel our eyes from them. In the United States it's been shown that 99% of households own at least one television. Not only do almost all of us own televisions but we spend on average almost 7 hours a day with the damn thing on. We are quickly becoming even more controlled by television as Alana Semuels of the Los Angles Times reported that the average hours of television viewing in America has risen by 3.6% from just last year. Now the real problem I find in this rising epidemic of t.v brain washing is the children.

Studies now show that violent behavior isn't the only affect of early television view. It has been concluded that television exposure in children ages 1 to 3 is associated with attention problems by the age of 7. A child's brain at these ages is susceptible to many outside influences that alter the brains development and television has proven to be a harmful one. Now again there are different views on why this is, however, the studies to prove that cognitive problems such as ADHD did not depend on what was being watched but simply watching its self.

The stats of adult's watching television are overwhelming. However, those pertaining to children are even more troubling. The kids health website reported that two-thirds of infants and toddlers watch an average of 2 hours a day. Now many would say there's nothing wrong with watching a little t.v as a child. But how does what a child sees on the screen affect them? Well the first and most alarming fact is that by the age of 18 a child will have seen more than 200,000 acts of violence. As a child before being able to put these acts into context, they might simply establish the idea that violence is simply entertaining. With these images of violence so prevalent on television it almost goes without saying that violence has become as acceptable as saying shit on t.v. For a young child they may not be able to know that this is wrong. If they can watch it, it must be fine.

Violence is very prevalent on television but even more so are commercials. There is the constant debate of whether or not we are becoming increasingly materialistic due to t.v. The average child watches around 20,000 commercials a year, and many of these are directed right at children. The American child is bombarded everyday with images and sounds to buy products, and as a result I feel we have become materialistic monsters. Children are quickly being sucked up by businesses to be molded into perfect consumers. To quote the documentary Super Size Me's opening scene, "Take care of the customer, and the business will take care of its self." Ray Kroc, McDonalds founder. This has proven to be a successful word of advice. The commercials children watch are catered for them, and as a result business has boomed.

The clear answer in my mind is that parents should kill the television. They can revive it once the children grow up, but until then no t.v seems to be the right answer.

The Age of Facebook

Teenagers no longer seem to be the only ones using the web for social networking. Facebook which started out as a way of connecting new college students from Harvard University became a public space in which anyone can log on and share. Facebook and myspace appeared originally to be a space only for the young, with adults in most cases practically shunned from using such sites by their children. But recent polls however show that the trend of online networking has panned over into the adult sphere. With the average age of myspace users now at 27 years old it seems the trend might be changing its age group. These sights still don't attract as many people past 40 however the 18-34 year old makes up 46% of users. And the 25-34 year old group is now the fastest growing age demographic. What started as sites for teens to share gossip and connect with friends is now an adult network even used in business.

Facebook in particular has changed the dynamic of online networking making it possible to easily connect with business members and international groups. Facebook allows for easy access for workers to keep up to date with events, e-mail messages, and to coordinate meetings. Facebook in fact has created applications specifically for business users. This may in fact be the reason why the age demographic is shifting. With more people generating profiles in the workplace it follows to say that the middle aged demographic will continue to grow. With the site moving towards a much more business oriented stance the use of the site in the workplace has become a problem.

What has started to arise is the relatively new phenomenon of cyber-slacking. A problem that has been estimated to cost employers $1 billion a year in computer resources. With Facebook the potential for abuse in the work place became very apparent when employers started noticing a decline in work productivity. Workers are so easily able to surf the net during work that many companies have had to establish new ways of protecting against slacking. Almost 40% of companies have started to ban social networking sites in order to keep productivity higher. However, still workers seem to be able to break down this wall. Now polls show that nearly half of the profiles made by users, are done so in the workplace. Online surfing has become the primary distraction at work for many and continues to generate problems. Facebook it seems may not be the way forward for businesses. Much more likely is that soon to come Facebook and other sites of this nature will have another age shift as more and more employers shut down the site in the workplace.

Into the Wild

Walking over the Williamsburg bridge from Brooklyn into the city I'm presented with postcard images of an alive and vibrant city. One that never sleeps but in turn never wakes even with the sun. I see the lights shining and cannot help but stare in awe at its beauty. On the bridge I walk towards the steel forest that so many people have cultivated into a perfect row of trees. I find only when I am out of the forest do I see the city. Inside the steel I cannot see any intrinsic beauty. Inside the city I am swallowed up and oblivious to its venom. The venom of late nights and alcohol, of not stopping to offer a homeless man change because I'm in a rush. This is a city that envelopes its dwellers into an coma of precision and neglect for others outside of themselves. However, once woken from the coma of city life. On the bridge and out of the steel honeycomb. I can see its beauty. This is the magic of the city that I urge everyone to find and uncover. Here exists both the venom that poisons us and the antidote that will resurrect us.

My initial thought of New York City was that this place was as far from nature as you could get. There's little nature to speak of: no trees, no water (other than the heavily polluted rivers), and almost no wildlife. However, with a keen eye it's possible to see that the city in fact resembles nature. We live like bees in our colonies, constantly rushing to get our work done. We move from flower to flower, from east to west. The parallels between city and forest are uncanny. We literally live in a giant steel forest. What has to happen is the recognition that these images of nature exist in the city. The cities nature is man made, and because of this has its problems. But steel can be beautiful and natural. It may not initially appear this way, but on closer inspection I can see it. The buildings are now the trees I miss from Maine. The streets of people flowing down towards Union Square my rivers. What I have to keep doing is keep reminding myself that just because there's steel instead of wood, I can still find peace here.

The city although infectious and in many case venomous to nature. Constantly eating up the remaining trees with new buildings, but keep in mind that industrial doesn't mean bad. Taking refuge away from the city from time to time to notice how similar the city is to even a place like Maine. When you come to the city for the first time without knowledge of the fast paced lifestyle, you will fall victim to it and quite literally be eaten up by it. However, the same can be said for Maine. The vast wilderness, the almost vacant towns, are simply the opposite but have similar qualities. Living in Maine for 18 years allowed me to see that had I not moved out I would have been perpetually entrenched in small town life. Not ever seeing more of the world. The city is the same. I couldn't live here forever because the same would happen. I would become so content with city living that I wouldn't search out anything beyond it. I would stop seeing its brilliance.

As a dweller in the city now I have to remove myself from its confines periodically, otherwise I forget why it is I came in the first place. The city is the place that it is most apparent that many of us aren't knowledgeable of what a place can lull us into. We become satisfied by late nights and steel structures, rather than by trees and rivers. However what I have failed to realize until now is that both can give us sustenance. And in fact that we need both. The city may not have as many trees, and there are too many people in such a relatively small area. However, the city provides me contrast from the small town I grew up in. The city makes me appreciate both worlds.