Discussing politics can be a polarizing event in this country, with what seems to be 2 opposing factions bent on winning the majority of our votes if it kills us, and the country as well. I'm not going to subscribe to party politics, and politics are not the reason for this post. Shed the normal party distinctons, forget the pre-packages politicians dancing in front of you that each spends more time with writers and stage coaches than Hollywood actors (so often the present wrapping is worth more than what's in the box), and remember they are people and citizens just like you.
Think of yourself as a juror, instructed by the judge to consider only the binding laws involved and not your personal feelings about someone, and weigh evidence as it pertains to a violation of the law. Once you've established the appropriate frame of mind, watch the following short YouTube video (in 2 parts):
Part I: http://youtube.com/watch?v=xq8aopATYyw
Part II: http://youtube.com/watch?v=AMfUajhL24I
Here's the emotional jtf.org video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Tm43YzqQCwI
Here's a more detailed journal of Bill and Hillary Clinton, the documentary "Bill Clinton: His Life" is available below (can be referenced in the IMDB at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1126486/):
1) http://youtube.com/watch?v=a0-HkVcMOSw
2) http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ls9yD4ZC6tA
3) http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qetpi5PvFDI
4) http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qo5yF-hu9C4
5) http://youtube.com/watch?v=9szhm3JzJvA
6) http://youtube.com/watch?v=_UkAbMnbq7A
7) http://youtube.com/watch?v=e4ibkrOqVh0
8) http://youtube.com/watch?v=fSqui14_674
9) http://youtube.com/watch?v=I6LWcH2aOT8
10) http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xjwp8J6FexA
11) http://youtube.com/watch?v=5AVjMhMVYpQ
12) http://youtube.com/watch?v=tZvo6ryp6yo
So, political bias and media glitz aside, if you were an objective fact finding outsider, what would you think?
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Education and The "Adult" Student
When do our children become true adults? Disregard the fact that you, the parent, may see your child as your little boy or girl forever. That is an emotional determination decided amongst each family, but has nothing to do with society or our legal system. Legally, your child becomes an adult when they are emancipated, reaching the age of suffrage, and have the full privileges and responsibilities of any American citizen. In our country, this happens at the age of 18 for the vast majority. Once an adult, parents are no longer responsible for the actions of their children, and accordingly they are no longer able to legally direct the actions of their children. They have been ‘freed’, now free to choose for themselves, and accept the consequences of those decisions. Parents continuing to attempt to exert control over their children does not change this legal threshold, despite what some parents may think. When they are 18, they are an adult, period, end of paragraph, end of chapter.
So now you have successfully raised your child to adulthood. They can make their own choices, live their own life, leave the nest, free to head out into the world and make their own way. You, the parent, are no longer legally responsible for their actions. However, every time your adult child submits an application for anything involving money, the recipient of the application is always interested in the parent’s financial status. Why is that? Rhetorical question.
There are 2 sides to this issue, one legal, and one business, and both questionable. The legal side is one of continued dependency, meaning this ‘adult’ has changed from a child dependent as a result of being under the age of suffrage, to an adult dependent with the rights of suffrage but wholly dependent upon another citizen for food and shelter. A special tax case for your own family members while they remain a student or until they reach the age of 21. During this dependency period, your adult child can be employed and you can continue to claim them as a dependent for tax purposes, and continue to maintain them as family members on your insurance. This sounds like someone is doing you and your child a favor, but in truth, any adult who is solely dependent upon you for support is a qualified dependent and entitles you to the same tax and insurance privileges. They don’t have to be your child, and the real benefit is questionable.
There are a myriad of financial alternatives for your adult child to pay for college, unless you are independently wealthy, which the majority of us are not. This is a country which professes higher standards of education, yet has yielded the responsibility of post-secondary education to business, even at our state universities. We pay more taxes for the minimal support we receive from our government than any other nation on the planet, and yet still have to pay for education. You can’t register your child for kindergarten without someone holding their hand out for payment. State universities, as with all public schools, are paid for with citizen tax dollars, and yet you are asked to pay additional fees from your post-tax dollars to use the privilege. Every citizen pays for the school system, yet only a smalle\rcentage actually recieve the education without additonal cost, and they continually deny access to legitimate applicants from within the state that funds them. It seems we easily forget that the state government and state educational system work for us, and we decide what they do and how they do it. The whole situation wreaks of financial mismanagement, and misuse of taxpayer dollars intended to fund education. An old story, but one that continues to pose questions, and no one is providing answers.
The issue of government financial mismanagement is a topic unto itself, and we can address that in a separate writing. The intent in bringing up the topic in relation to education was to remind the parents that they are already contributing to their child’s education every day, even after they become adults. Your tax burden actually increases when your children become adults, removing some of the 'benefit' of having less dependents to pay for. Higher education is part of the system you are funding with your tax dollars, and you are not getting what you pay for.
The point is that you raise your children to adulthood, send them off to start their adult lives with continuing education, and yet the system continues to reach into your pocket. It is not because it is right, or legal, it is because you are a better source of money and allowing your adult children a reduced cost education wouldn’t feed the real motive. If state universities were trying to break even, they wouldn’t be funding additional programs and facilities, they couldn’t. They wouldn’t be giving free education to special interest groups either, instead they would be offering reduced tuition to all citizens equally based upon residence requirements. However, they do continue to spend above and beyond basic operational costs without additional state funding, so how do they make up for the additional cost? The student body is composed of young adults without any real earning potential, so they need to get the money somewhere. That’s where you, the parent, come in.
You have no legal obligation to provide any funding, in fact the school – or more accurately the state you fund with your tax dollars, has that obligation. However, as long as you are listing your children as dependents, they can assert that you are assuming their full financial obligations, and keep a hand in your pocket. Your best bet is to stop carrying your children as dependents after the age of 18. Both they, and you, will realize more benefit when they apply for scholarships, grants, and subsidies on their own, without your parental income being considered. Don’t continue to provide additional funds to a system you are already funding through your tax dollars. Resident tuition can be covered by scholarships and grants much easier if your income is not accounted for.
If you want your children to be able to stay at home, have them pay you a small amount of rent to cover their costs, then they are not dependent upon you – at least not legally. You are also able to legally give your money to whomever you choose, and are also entitled to give limited financial gifts to your children without tax consequence. Explore your legal options, tax options, and education options in full. Get the best education for your money, and have your children take advantage of the benefits of citizenry and higher education without reaching into your pocket. If you are a tax paying citizen, remember that someone will get the money from scholarships, grants, and reduced residential tuition that American citizens and businesses fund, so I say you should make sure its someone deserving, like your own children.
What is your opinion?
So now you have successfully raised your child to adulthood. They can make their own choices, live their own life, leave the nest, free to head out into the world and make their own way. You, the parent, are no longer legally responsible for their actions. However, every time your adult child submits an application for anything involving money, the recipient of the application is always interested in the parent’s financial status. Why is that? Rhetorical question.
There are 2 sides to this issue, one legal, and one business, and both questionable. The legal side is one of continued dependency, meaning this ‘adult’ has changed from a child dependent as a result of being under the age of suffrage, to an adult dependent with the rights of suffrage but wholly dependent upon another citizen for food and shelter. A special tax case for your own family members while they remain a student or until they reach the age of 21. During this dependency period, your adult child can be employed and you can continue to claim them as a dependent for tax purposes, and continue to maintain them as family members on your insurance. This sounds like someone is doing you and your child a favor, but in truth, any adult who is solely dependent upon you for support is a qualified dependent and entitles you to the same tax and insurance privileges. They don’t have to be your child, and the real benefit is questionable.
There are a myriad of financial alternatives for your adult child to pay for college, unless you are independently wealthy, which the majority of us are not. This is a country which professes higher standards of education, yet has yielded the responsibility of post-secondary education to business, even at our state universities. We pay more taxes for the minimal support we receive from our government than any other nation on the planet, and yet still have to pay for education. You can’t register your child for kindergarten without someone holding their hand out for payment. State universities, as with all public schools, are paid for with citizen tax dollars, and yet you are asked to pay additional fees from your post-tax dollars to use the privilege. Every citizen pays for the school system, yet only a smalle\rcentage actually recieve the education without additonal cost, and they continually deny access to legitimate applicants from within the state that funds them. It seems we easily forget that the state government and state educational system work for us, and we decide what they do and how they do it. The whole situation wreaks of financial mismanagement, and misuse of taxpayer dollars intended to fund education. An old story, but one that continues to pose questions, and no one is providing answers.
The issue of government financial mismanagement is a topic unto itself, and we can address that in a separate writing. The intent in bringing up the topic in relation to education was to remind the parents that they are already contributing to their child’s education every day, even after they become adults. Your tax burden actually increases when your children become adults, removing some of the 'benefit' of having less dependents to pay for. Higher education is part of the system you are funding with your tax dollars, and you are not getting what you pay for.
The point is that you raise your children to adulthood, send them off to start their adult lives with continuing education, and yet the system continues to reach into your pocket. It is not because it is right, or legal, it is because you are a better source of money and allowing your adult children a reduced cost education wouldn’t feed the real motive. If state universities were trying to break even, they wouldn’t be funding additional programs and facilities, they couldn’t. They wouldn’t be giving free education to special interest groups either, instead they would be offering reduced tuition to all citizens equally based upon residence requirements. However, they do continue to spend above and beyond basic operational costs without additional state funding, so how do they make up for the additional cost? The student body is composed of young adults without any real earning potential, so they need to get the money somewhere. That’s where you, the parent, come in.
You have no legal obligation to provide any funding, in fact the school – or more accurately the state you fund with your tax dollars, has that obligation. However, as long as you are listing your children as dependents, they can assert that you are assuming their full financial obligations, and keep a hand in your pocket. Your best bet is to stop carrying your children as dependents after the age of 18. Both they, and you, will realize more benefit when they apply for scholarships, grants, and subsidies on their own, without your parental income being considered. Don’t continue to provide additional funds to a system you are already funding through your tax dollars. Resident tuition can be covered by scholarships and grants much easier if your income is not accounted for.
If you want your children to be able to stay at home, have them pay you a small amount of rent to cover their costs, then they are not dependent upon you – at least not legally. You are also able to legally give your money to whomever you choose, and are also entitled to give limited financial gifts to your children without tax consequence. Explore your legal options, tax options, and education options in full. Get the best education for your money, and have your children take advantage of the benefits of citizenry and higher education without reaching into your pocket. If you are a tax paying citizen, remember that someone will get the money from scholarships, grants, and reduced residential tuition that American citizens and businesses fund, so I say you should make sure its someone deserving, like your own children.
What is your opinion?
Value of Higher Education
I have 2 teenagers living at home, both of which are entering the final stages of secondary academics in preparation for college. This has given me ample opportunity to review the current state of post-secondary academia, and here are some of my thoughts.
Other than a few key Ivy League schools, specialized schools like MIT or The School of Mines, or a school with a specialized academic offering such as Medicine, Law, Engineering, etc., accredited colleges and universities are academically the same. What separates them is not an issue of the quality of academics, but an issue of the number of applicants. That is what truly defines how difficult it is to get into any given college or university. American higher education is a business, after all, unlike the academic institutions of most other countries. A state university system will have minimum standards applied that are based on the states academic objectives, but those standards are usually at an acceptable low level. So what causes all the competition for schools?
A highly competitive school is one that students desire to attend, period. Despite all the academic hubris from those universities that consider themselves the "top tier" of higher education, it is really all about the number of applicants versus the number of seats that determines how competitive a school appears to be. The more students that apply, the less scholarships have to be offered, the less financial compromises a school has to make - meaning more financial resources, and the more scrutiny applied to applicants. After all, this being a litigious society, you have to be able to justify picking 1,000 students from 10,000 applicants. That forms the basis of a ‘highly competitive’ university, as opposed to any credentials the university may have.
My point is this. I have been top tier management for most of my life in the engineering industry. I have never distinguished between one school and another when screening job applicants, and neither have any of my peers. I have given additional hiring consideration to a particular field of study relevant to the position requirements, and have even considered transcripts on 1 or 2 occasions (very rare occurrence), but have never given credit to a UCLA graduate over Texas Christian University, as an example. I was always looking for the right person for the job, which is purely based on the individual applicant, and the educational background served 2 purposes. First was to screen the applicant against the requirements of the position, basically get you from application to interview, and second was the infrequent discriminator between 2 otherwise equal candidates (never based on the school attended).
So, in my opinion, what makes a school highly competitive is the desire for students to attend. The more students want to attend, the more financial resources a school has, and a small portion of that will actually end up being spent on students. Throw out the politics and pompous statements from the ‘top 10’ and it really boils down to what students want. You have an option, attend the University of Alaska or the University of California at Los Angeles… hmmm… will you choose the frozen state of Alaska or will you choose the sunny beaches of Southern California?
The sheer number of applicants speaks for itself. I think most academically minded students with an eye on their future would pick a university where they can stand out and focus on academics, but I believe that most university students are simple byproducts of inflated secondary academics imposed by federal/state systems that refuse to accept that everyone has different capabilities and limitations, and many will drop out in the first 2 years. So why the desire to attend UCLA over UAF? Let me see, ULCA = visions of girls in bikinis, parties, beaches, and life in Southern California, UAF = visions of cold, girls in flannel, snow, and the occasional moose. Is it really academics, or another symptom of our hedonistic society marching steadily toward collapse? For the theologian out there, a reference to Sodom and Gomorra seems apropos.
In summary, I think that an accredited university is what counts most. If you attend a university accredited to provide higher education, than you will be awarded an accredited degree, which will define your educational level. Period. Throw out the concepts of American capitalism and hedonism, and you are left with what really counts. Affordable accredited higher academia. Don’t let a failed value system define you education, and leave you in debt beyond the earnings you had hoped to gain from your degree. Caveat Emptor applies to everything with a price tag in this country, even education, and you should shop around for the best deal you can get. I could write a book on this subject, but we'll save that for another day. I recommend you save your ‘Cadillac’ money for an actual Cadillac, and not some university purporting to be the ‘Cadillac’ of higher education. Remember 'you get what you pay for' was coined by businesses, not consumers. Remember too, there is a significant taxpayer burden associated with higher education, and your money doesn't go to equally deserving students, or anywhere you might value. Be thrifty, you will be much happier in the years that follow.
There you have my 2 cents on the topic, or maybe a nickel, what are your thoughts?
Other than a few key Ivy League schools, specialized schools like MIT or The School of Mines, or a school with a specialized academic offering such as Medicine, Law, Engineering, etc., accredited colleges and universities are academically the same. What separates them is not an issue of the quality of academics, but an issue of the number of applicants. That is what truly defines how difficult it is to get into any given college or university. American higher education is a business, after all, unlike the academic institutions of most other countries. A state university system will have minimum standards applied that are based on the states academic objectives, but those standards are usually at an acceptable low level. So what causes all the competition for schools?
A highly competitive school is one that students desire to attend, period. Despite all the academic hubris from those universities that consider themselves the "top tier" of higher education, it is really all about the number of applicants versus the number of seats that determines how competitive a school appears to be. The more students that apply, the less scholarships have to be offered, the less financial compromises a school has to make - meaning more financial resources, and the more scrutiny applied to applicants. After all, this being a litigious society, you have to be able to justify picking 1,000 students from 10,000 applicants. That forms the basis of a ‘highly competitive’ university, as opposed to any credentials the university may have.
My point is this. I have been top tier management for most of my life in the engineering industry. I have never distinguished between one school and another when screening job applicants, and neither have any of my peers. I have given additional hiring consideration to a particular field of study relevant to the position requirements, and have even considered transcripts on 1 or 2 occasions (very rare occurrence), but have never given credit to a UCLA graduate over Texas Christian University, as an example. I was always looking for the right person for the job, which is purely based on the individual applicant, and the educational background served 2 purposes. First was to screen the applicant against the requirements of the position, basically get you from application to interview, and second was the infrequent discriminator between 2 otherwise equal candidates (never based on the school attended).
So, in my opinion, what makes a school highly competitive is the desire for students to attend. The more students want to attend, the more financial resources a school has, and a small portion of that will actually end up being spent on students. Throw out the politics and pompous statements from the ‘top 10’ and it really boils down to what students want. You have an option, attend the University of Alaska or the University of California at Los Angeles… hmmm… will you choose the frozen state of Alaska or will you choose the sunny beaches of Southern California?
The sheer number of applicants speaks for itself. I think most academically minded students with an eye on their future would pick a university where they can stand out and focus on academics, but I believe that most university students are simple byproducts of inflated secondary academics imposed by federal/state systems that refuse to accept that everyone has different capabilities and limitations, and many will drop out in the first 2 years. So why the desire to attend UCLA over UAF? Let me see, ULCA = visions of girls in bikinis, parties, beaches, and life in Southern California, UAF = visions of cold, girls in flannel, snow, and the occasional moose. Is it really academics, or another symptom of our hedonistic society marching steadily toward collapse? For the theologian out there, a reference to Sodom and Gomorra seems apropos.
In summary, I think that an accredited university is what counts most. If you attend a university accredited to provide higher education, than you will be awarded an accredited degree, which will define your educational level. Period. Throw out the concepts of American capitalism and hedonism, and you are left with what really counts. Affordable accredited higher academia. Don’t let a failed value system define you education, and leave you in debt beyond the earnings you had hoped to gain from your degree. Caveat Emptor applies to everything with a price tag in this country, even education, and you should shop around for the best deal you can get. I could write a book on this subject, but we'll save that for another day. I recommend you save your ‘Cadillac’ money for an actual Cadillac, and not some university purporting to be the ‘Cadillac’ of higher education. Remember 'you get what you pay for' was coined by businesses, not consumers. Remember too, there is a significant taxpayer burden associated with higher education, and your money doesn't go to equally deserving students, or anywhere you might value. Be thrifty, you will be much happier in the years that follow.
There you have my 2 cents on the topic, or maybe a nickel, what are your thoughts?
Friday, October 12, 2007
Al Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize!
Welcome to Higher Thinking! To kick off this web log, former Vice President Al Gore seems a timely topic of discussion. I'm not a "Democrat" as labels tend to be misnomers, and I didn't vote for Al Gore during his presidential bid, but I do believe that he has grown significantly in the past 8 years. I enjoyed the docu-drama 'An Inconvenient Truth', regarded the subsequent theatrical awards as well deserved, and felt that he had finally found his inner voice and audience after years of struggling.
He has proven himself an elegant spokesman of a desperate cause, and I believe him to be an equally disciplined statesman. I was elated to learn that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, and now I have to wonder what caliber of president this Nobel laureate and champion of the Earth might make. The Executive office is a mixture of international and domestic politics, compromises of citizenry in the name of big business and special interests, and palace games on a scale of grandeur befitting of American hubris. Would his noble cause survive, and is it a platform of reform that Americans would relate to?
So, my questions - Should Al Gore run for President of the United States in 2008? If so, on what Platform, and would you vote for him? If not, why?
He has proven himself an elegant spokesman of a desperate cause, and I believe him to be an equally disciplined statesman. I was elated to learn that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, and now I have to wonder what caliber of president this Nobel laureate and champion of the Earth might make. The Executive office is a mixture of international and domestic politics, compromises of citizenry in the name of big business and special interests, and palace games on a scale of grandeur befitting of American hubris. Would his noble cause survive, and is it a platform of reform that Americans would relate to?
So, my questions - Should Al Gore run for President of the United States in 2008? If so, on what Platform, and would you vote for him? If not, why?
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