ARIANNA ONLINE – June 16, 2004 – Graduation 2004: Pomp and Crummy Circumstances
It’s that time. And I�m not talking about cicadas. It’s graduation time, and all across the country high school seniors are tossing their mortarboards into the air and heading off to face a future filled with hope, promise – and soaring college tuition and fees.
It’s one of the few areas in which the GOP really has taken the country to a higher level.
The cost of a college education at a four-year public university has risen a devastating 35 percent since George W. Bush took office. He promised to be “the education president,” but in what we now know to be the classic Bush bait and switch, he then did just the opposite, delivering a tax-slashing economic agenda that forced public colleges and universities in all but one state to raise tuition in 2003.
As an added little gift for the new grads, the Bush administration’s latest budget-cutting guidelines will lead to a $550 million reduction in federal assistance to those college students in need of financial aid.
Happy graduation, kids! Enjoy your decades of indebtedness – at least those of you who are not forced to forego college altogether.
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Congrats to my own graduate, Jonathan, graduating from high school this evening. With no job. And no college plans. And an addiction to video games. Sigh. I guess we still have some work to do… but hey, the kid’s eighteen, has never done drugs or drank alcohol, hasn’t gotten anyone pregnant and never crashed a car (he doesn’t have his license yet, either….) And he’s bright and funny and cute, with longer hair than me. And has a collection of over 60 tigers in his room. And his own web site – http://www.blacktigerclan.org/. What can I say, we love the little tiggie.
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