Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Massachusetts Sticks It to College Students

"the state government is subsidizing its colleges and universities at the second-lowest rate in the country"

TRILLIONS for WARS and BANKS, BILLIONS for ISRAEL, and.... I get tired of typing it!

"Tuition hammers Bay State, study says; But graduation rates are among the best in nation" by Peter Schworm, Globe Staff | December 3, 2008

With steady tuition hikes outpacing income gains, college costs are placing a heavy financial burden on Massachusetts families, derailing many students' progress toward a degree, a new national survey has found. Even with financial aid, poor and working-class families must spend nearly half their annual income to attend public four-year colleges, according to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education's "Measuring Up 2008" report, which was released today....

Of course, when you are preparing to institute a draft and dictatorship, the last thing you want is educated children with college opportunities.

Related: Harvard Recruits College Students... in China

Why I Should Have Become a Teacher

Colleges Work For Globalists

***************

Among the bottom 40 percent of Massachusetts earners, who make an average of $21,130 a year, college costs are especially onerous. A year of community college, for example, costs about $8,500 after financial aid, about 40 percent of their earnings. For students at four-year public colleges, the yearly cost of roughly $10,300 consumed about 50 percent of wages in that income bracket.

That's why I had to quit; I was getting ZERO AID and ran out of money!

"We're seeing more students priced out," said Bob Giannino-Racine, executive director of ACCESS, a nonprofit in Boston that counsels students on financial aid. "We're seeing more students go to community college when they are ready for a four-year school and more students who can't stay in school because they have to work. They and their families just can't make it."

Finances also are making it harder for many students, particularly low-income and minorities, to continue their education, the report found.... "We've known for a long time that affordability is a critical problem," said Paul Reville, the state's education secretary. "We've been falling behind in providing students financial aid, and we've got to make that ground up."

Of course, "flushing . . . millions of dollars away supporting a highly profitable industry" when it comes to $300 million in taxpayer dollars for Hollywood is o.k., even as the price of a school lunch rises; paying $13 million for a computer software system that could have cost less than $3 million is all right because the winner was a close friend of the House speaker, even as my poorer-than-dirt district "has been struggling to close a $2 million budget gap."; the lottery shelling out "millions of dollars" for sports tickets for "lottery officials, their family members, and friends" is fine, even as schools are closing; making interest payments to banks to the tune of "a staggering $22 billion" for the Big Pit, as we call it around here, is required, even as bridges are neglected across the state; and again, paying off banks like UBS, who can "demand repayment of an additional $2 million a month beginning in January" while also receiving a "$179 million payment," while the state pension fund loses $1 billion dollars -- which still didn't stop the executive director from carving himself a nice "$64,000 bonus on top of his $322,000 annual salary."

Oh, and did I not mention the $1 BILLION dollar giveaway to the pharmaceutical corporations, even though "it's never been easy to turn a profit in biotech?" Flush that money away, too, taxpayer. Of course, the war looters were next in line for a handout. And should the state be appropriating money for a "multimillion-dollar reconstruction" of golf courses?

Nor is it RECKLESS to BORROW the STATE INTO OBLIVION so they can PAY INTEREST to BANKS while SITTING ON $2 BILLION DOLLARS!

And did I forget about PAYING FOR the CORPORATE TV COMMERCIALS or the outlays for illegal immigrants?

Need one final insult, Mass. taxpayers?

"
Town officials... are trying to decide how much of a property tax break to offer and how they can secure state funding for infrastructure improvements.... although it could take several years for the studio to realize its potential"

Also see: Hollywood, Massachusetts

Hollywood (East) Disses Veterans

More Mass. $$$ to Movie Makers

Sorry, that wasn't it:

"$5m in tax breaks going to IBM for Littleton project

The Massachusetts Economic Assistance Coordinating Council approved $5 million in state and local tax breaks for IBM Corp., which recently began a $63 million expansion in Littleton. IBM vice president Bob McDonald said the company plans to create 42 jobs at the site over the next decade. McDonald said the computer giant, based in Armonk, N.Y., has already begun renovating a building and hopes to move into it next month. McDonald said the tax incentives were important, but the company would have gone forward with the expansion without them. IBM has 4,000 employees in Massachusetts, including about 2,000 in Littleton (Boston Globe October 30 2008)."

Yeah, I do get sick of the relinking and relinking -- and the LIES of the GOVERNMENT and MSM!!!

When judged by percentage of personal income, the state government is subsidizing its colleges and universities at the second-lowest rate in the country behind New Hampshire, the study found.

OH MY GOD!!!! Massachusetts -- the GREAT LIBERAL STATE -- is NEAR the BOTTOM in SCHOOL FUNDING!!! I guess that is what happens when all your tax revenues go for INTEREST PAYMENTS to BANKS and CORPORATE GIVEAWAYS -- as well as being controlled by a bunch of LYING, LOOTING POLITICIANS!!!!!!


Reville said that despite the state's budget woes, officials remain committed to boosting spending on financial aid and reducing community college tuition in the next budget cycle....

What a BULLSHITTER!! They are CUTTING AID because of the "BUDGET CRISIS!"


Despite the comparatively high costs, students in Massachusetts colleges are graduating at the nation's highest rate....

Well, when your schools are shit, it is easy to graduate stoo-pidos -- while CHARGING TOP DOLLAR, too!!!!


--more--"