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They snuck another one by us. No
warning. No discussion. No questions.
No answers.
Last year, tuition at UNL was $34.50
per credit hour. This fall, well pay $38.
For the fifth time in the last three
years, the NU Board of Regents has
approved an increase in tuition. In the
fall of 1981, when this year's seniors
probably started here, tuition was a
relatively cheap $29.25 per credit hour.
Over the years and through the semes
ters, tuition has gone up 43 percent
since then. Itll be $41.75 an hour in
1935-86.
There isn't much we can do about it
now. What's done is done. But where
are the good ole days, when students
yelled and screamed and protested
such reprehensible behavior?
We apparently just dont care. We're
too busy having fun and studying and
working and paying off those loans. We
just don't have time to try to deal with
administrators who seem far removed
from the situation, thinking onfy business
like thoughts. They'd never compre
hend the plight of an ordinary, poor,
impoverished college student.
Wouldn't it be great if we could sit
down and chat with them about things
like tuition hikes?
"Well, Tommy, it 's like this. We need
$175 more in tuition from you this
year. That's only ten percent more
than last year and only ten percent
more than the year before that."
They could ask us what we think of
the idea. They could tell us why we're
being tormented and what they need
the money for much like Mom and
Dad when we go to them for more
money.
We still want a top-ranked univer
sity with a favorable reputation and
good instructors. Long overdue salary
increases whould help. Channeling nearly
$2 million into computing both aca
demic and administrative might put
us closer to the goal of near-national
prominence collegiate computing.
Perhaps ve ought to share the wealth
a bit. Other departments could use a
shot in the arm, too. True, the compu
ter science department waited a long
time for its present renovation. But
other department heads might say
they're hurting just as badly.
UNL could be a fantastic university.
In some areas it is. But nobody wants
to pay for it. Taxpayers naturally are
reluctant to pay higher taxes to sup
port the university. And students are
tired of paying more and more through
tuition.
We didn't complain last spring when
the price of football season tickets
went up, either.
Jann Nyffeler
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Congress hangs itself on school prayei
Someone once said that given an
infinite number of monkeys and an
infinite number of typewriters, sooner
or later you'll get "Hamlet. And given
enough rope and enough presidential
candidates extolling the family, God
and middle-class values, you will in the
end get Congress to hang itself on the
school prayer issue. It has been done.
Leave it to Rep. Barney Frank CD
Mass.) to notice that Congress is now
dangling at the end of its own rope. It
was Frank, your basic liberal, who
pointed out that the so-called equal
access bill would not only allow stu
dents to voluntarily gather in school
before or after classes for prayer, but
would allow all kinds of other groups
to do the same.
SUES
Richard
Cohen
Frank mentioned young Trotskyites
(clearly an oxymoron) and gay-rights
activists, but he might also have cited
any and all religious cults Hari Krish
na, Scientology which a whole lot of
people find either threatening or ob
noxious. "I think it's wonderful," said
Frank who supported the bill. "But I'm
surprised at some of my allies."
Frank, of course, was referring to
conservatives and others who have
been plumping for years to get God
back into the schools. Just exactly
what this expression means, I leave to
you since any God worthy of the name
is not going to be challenged by a hall
monitor for His pass. What is meant of
course, is organized prayer and that
only incidentally has to do with God,
but everything to do with providing
children with religious values values
some parents do not want their child
ren to get in school but which some
politicians insist they get anyway.
There would be no problem with
that if, as politicians are now insisting,
we were all one family. But we are not.
We are a nation, one composed of peo
ple with many religions and lots of
people who have no religion at all. And
even many people who do have reli
gious beliefs totally consonant with
those expressed by a school prayer
think nevertheless that the govern
ment has no right fostering them. This
may have been the view held by the
Founding Fathers who, old-fashioned
liberals that they were, amended the
Constitution to, separate church and
state.
In every congressional debate on
school prayer, some congressman tells
what it was like to be a member of a
minority religion and attend school
where there was organized prayer. He
felt intimidated, and wondered why
the school, which is to say the govern
ment, did not respect his own religious
views why it lent its building for
what was manifestly a religious pur
pose. Usually, Congress listens respect
fully and then votes for school prayer
anyway. It is comforting, when you are
in the majority, to know that yours will
be the prayers recited.
Now, though, Congress has moved
forthrightly to give the majority the
perspective of the minority. Under the
bill that awaits President Reagan's sig
nature, every sort of political, religious
or philosophical organization can have
access to the.sehpols. This is wonder
fully democratic in principle, but in
practice it is bound to scare the dickens
out of plenty of parents. I, for one, can
not wait until a student telb a parent
that he was late coming home from
school because he paused to don a saf
fron robe, grab his tinkly bells and
attend a meeting of the Denounce
Your Parents Society.
In fact, I can not wait until Marxists,
socialists, gay rights activists, Hasidic
Jews, born-again Christians and any
thing else you can think of meet at the
local school and entice children to tary
a bit after class. Unless this country is
swept by an epidemic of tolerance
envisioned only in the biblical refer
ence to the lion lying down with the
lamb, parents will be screaming bloody
murder. They'll demand to know why
their tax dollars are being spent to
support religions or ideologies that
they find repulsive.
The answer will be that it started
with an effort to use the schools to
foster a majority of religion. And once
politicians started down that roarf
and once they were no longer content
to let the schools do their thing, the
church and the family theirs they
entered a mine field of conflicting reli
gious beliefs, offending the majority
instead of just the minority.
They put out enough rope to hang
themselves. It was quite a year. It was
an election year.
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EDITOR
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Lou Anno Zacck
The Daily Nebraskan (USPS 144-080) is published by
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Tuesday, July 31 1984