Jana Pedersen, Editor, 472-1766
Alan Phelps, Opinion Page Editor
LKara Wells, Managing Editor
Roger Price, Wire Editor
Wendy Navratil, Copy Desk Chief
Brian Shellito, Cartoonist
Jeremy Fitzpatrick, Senior Reporter
Rotten rules
^,rJ>
NCAA pushes new standards too high
New NCAA regulations designed to bolster academic
rules for college athletes go too far in a flawed
attempt to improve the nation’s schools.
Instead of helping the education system by pushing
inner-city schools to do better, the measure only pushes
some poorer students out of college.
Proposition 16, passed at the NCAA Convention in
Anaheim, Calif., last week, will raise from 2.0 to 2.5 the
high school grade point average required of those athletes
who score 700 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. A sliding
scale set up b^’the measure means that athletes who have
2.0 GPAs must have SAT scores above 900 or American
College Test (ACT) scores over 21.
The new rules would take effect for athletes entering
1 college after the 1995-96 year.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln students who have
taken the necessary core classes in high school now must
only meet one of three requirements for admission: they
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class, score 20 on the ACT or 850 on the SAT. Students
who do not meet arty of-the requirements can still be
admitted conditionally.
Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne contended the
proposal creates higher standards for athletes than other
UNL students. .
He said fhe stringent rules, if applied to the entire
university, would eliminate 25 percent of all athletes, 35
percent of football players, 48 percent of minority stu
dents and 17 to 18 percent of white students.
It is difficult to see the reasoning behind enacting
measures making it harder for a student.to get into UNL
simply because he or she happens to be an athlete.
Osborne said he wondered why this subject was an
issue at all because of research that has shown graduation
rates were higher for athletes than non-athletes. He makes
a very good point.
NU Athletic Director Bob Devanev also expressed
apprehension over the new rules. Devaney said athletes
should at least be given the opportunity to try their hand
at higher education.
“Let them in, and if they can’t do the work, then it is
OK to eliminate them or send them to a junior college,”
he said. “But at least give them a chance.”
UNL Chancellor Graham Spanier said that despite
some reservations, the university voted for the proposal in
Anaheim. Spanier said he was confident that athletes
would rise to the new standards.
More likely, there will simply be fewer students admit
ted to UNL, an institution funded by the taxpayers of this
state — including the parents of some of the students the
measure will affect.
Some have put forward these types of plans as Proposi
tion 16 to force inner-city high schools to improve by
setting ever-higher goals for the students. But all it will
really do is regulate away poorer students' opportunities
to go to college.
Many of the students targeted by these harsher regula
tions are minorities who just haven’t had the chance to
obtain an education comparable to those in more middle
class districts. That doesn’t mean they should be denied
the chance to improve themselves after graduation.
While upgrading the nation’s schools is a noble goal,
forcing athletes — in many cases poor minority students
— to meet higher goals than the rest of the crowd is not
the way to go about it.
—AJ.P.
---LETTER POLICY
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SEAN GREEN
Employment chill getting colder
Before my grades came in the
mail last week, I was a a little
worried.
After I got my grades, I was re
lieved, for a while. Then I went back
to being a little worried.
I was relieved because my per
sonal Christmas miracle, as usual,
involved my Spanish grade, the mir
acle being that I passed.
It wasn’t the sort of grade that
would prompt dancing in the streets,
but it was better than what I had been
preparing myself to accept.
However, after the euphoria had
worn off, I began to consider some of
life’s bigger questions.
If all goes as planned, I will gradu
ate in May. That can be a scary thought
at any time, but in 1992, it can lead to
chronic nightmares and bed-wetting.
Since few things go as planned,
especially when my study habits arc
involved, I probably don’t need to
worry about graduating in May. But
when I consider the possibility of my
graduation, however unlikely it may
be, I break out in a cold sweat. It’s the
kind of cold sweat death-row inmates
break into when they hear the backup
power generators starting to hum.
Last week, the U.S. Department of
Labor reported that the jobless rate
reached 7.1 percent in December 1991.
Some claim the 7.1 -percent figure
is on the low side. They point out that
the figure does not include those who
have simply given up looking for a
job and have taken themselves out of
the job market.
Neither does it include those who
are working for minimum wages at
places such as McDonald’s but who
nave invested time and money in
college or technical school in the hope
of reaching somewhat higher career
goals.
I don l think I II get much satisfac
tion from the knowledge that I can
say, “Would you like fries with that?”
in Spanish.
Actually, I can’t say, “Would you
like fries with that?” in Spanish, which
explains why I was a little worried
- about my grade. .
Many college students, and, fo be
fair, most Americans, start to nod off
£ when newspaper columnists start
throwing around words such as “prime
H interest whatchamacallit” and “mar
ginal propensity to do something or
s other.
j But . more and more people arc
0 paying attention to the economic silu
1 alion, including thousands of cmploy
ees of General Motors who got pink
^ slips for Christmas this year.
President Bush has promised an
economic solution to the nation’s ills,
* , \
I’ve talked to a few
jobless, people mvself.
and, ami of them
have told me that
when von>g unemi
played, it doesn’t
make that much
difference who the
president is. ql what
the Fed did last week.
which he will announce in hisSiaicof
the Union address later this month.
The Democratic presidential hope
fuls, as usual, arc promising miracles
if they are elected.
And, to boost the economy, Fed
eral Reserve Chairman Alan Green
span has bravely pledged to lower
interest rates again, if needed.
But Greenspan also told members
of Congress last week that the eco
nomic circumstances today arc un
like any he has witnessed in his four
decades as an economist.
With political leadership such as
this, the unemployed and the soon-to
bc unemployed may have good cause
to be nervous.
I sec the American economy as an
old, rickety bus with bad brakes, ca
reening out of control down a narrow
mountain road.
i ut umy uimg i can minx 10 no is
hope the driver knows something about
the situation that I don’t. And, of
course, with Bush at the wheel, I can
hope he doesn’t vomit into the slip
stream.
When the network news programs
talk about unemployment, they seem
to always show pictures of people
standing in line, wailing for an unem
ployment check.
These “victims of the recession”
often expound on the economy and
say this or that politician ought to get
in gear and do something or other.
But standing in line and talking
big-time economics to camera crews
is the glamorous part of being unem
ployed.
I’ve talked to a few jobless people
myself, and most of them have told
me that when you’re unemployed, it
doesn’t make that much difference
who the president is, or what the Fed
did last week.
Unemployment and job searching
means questioning everything, includ
ing yourself. Mostly yourself.
If you happen to have a family,
they get to enjoy all the benefits of
unemployment along with you.
And if you arc unemployed, it
doesn’t make much difference whether
you arc part of 7.1 percent of Ameri
cans in the same position, or 70.1
percent.
When I enter the job market, I’ll
be competing with professional re
porters who already have experience
in the real world, and who were lei
go from major newspapers undergo
ing corporate down-sizing.
Corporate downsizing — a eu
phemism for “our company is pretty
much going to hell, profit-wise, so
you’re fired”— is not unique to jour
nalism; it’s happening everywhere.
Well,OK, it’snot happening much
in Nebraska. Nebraska has managed
to avoid the recession. Or, as some
economises claim, it has already had
its share of what they call a rolling
recession.
A rolling recession is like an eco
nomic steamroller that goes over all
the country, flattening one area at a
lime. It went over Nebraska in the
mid-1980s. _
But it’s no secret that some stu
dents at the University of Nebraska
Lincoln are trained for job markets
not available in Nebraska, and I’m
not just talking about jobs for Holly
wood producers or surfboard polish
ers., X
bo many students, including my
self, will be going out into the great
wide-open, to quote Tom Petty. Thai
means going into areas that arc being
hard hit by the recession and trying to
find a job.
Even though the economic news is
bad, there’tprobably no reason to get
upset about getting good grades, or
even average grades, or even my
grades.
Since the alternative to graduating
and being unemployed isnolgraduat
ing and being unemployed, it’s not
really a tough choice.
Still, the “cold cruel world” they
warned us about at high school gradu
ation seems to have become a little bit
colder.
Green Is a senior news-editorial mujor,a
Dally Nebraskan senior reporter and a col
umnist
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