Editor’s note: Michael Ackley’s columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.
You may recall California Gov. Gray Davis.
Wait a minute: We did that in 2003.
Anyway, one of the swell things Gov. Davis did before he was evicted from the state capitol was declare that any high school student who attains the lofty grade point average of 2.0 – a “C” average – “deserves a college education.”
He acted on this assertion, signing into law an entitlement program specifying that if you clawed your way to said level of achievement, the state would pay for at least part of your higher education – provided you could prove low or middle-income status.
Naturally, you have to fill out an intrusive federal form listing (among other things) your or your parents’ income and assets, plus an application for the grant. Then your check will be in the mail.
The state will shell out up to $2,772 (“full, system-wide fees”) for the state university system, $6,636 for University of California fees or up to $9,700 toward the fees of private colleges.
As the Cal Grant website says, “Cal Grants are free money for college …” and, “The best thing of all, the money does not have to be paid back!” (Our emphasis, their exclamation point.)
Still, the grants are going begging, and the California Student Aid Commission has had to institute a heavy advertising campaign to recruit students. The commission’s television ads declare, in English or Spanish, that the grants can be a student’s “ticket to success.” (They translate “ticket” into Spanish as “la entrada,” while we would say “boleto,” but let’s not split linguistic hairs.)
What the poor, money-laden bureaucrats fail to understand – or can’t conceive – is that students who have achieved a 2.0 GPA cannot read or write well enough to fill out the forms. This applies equally to those just leaving high school and even to those who have a couple of years in the state college system under their belts. (We can’t testify regarding those in the University of California system, as we haven’t had the pleasure of teaching at that level.)
It seems to us grossly unfair that scholars who cannot read or write should be required to plow through the dense and confusing, four-page “Free Application for Federal Student Aid.”
For that matter, it seems to us grossly unfair that the Legislature and governor should have seen fit to exclude those scholars who have achieved GPAs of less than 2.0. After all, a 2.0 would have been worth a 1.0 or lower a couple of generations ago. Let us, therefore, declare that “D” and “F” students also “deserve a college education.”
Why should we make it so difficult to apply for grants that money that should be going to students is being spent on advertising? Why not just say, “Show us your college acceptance letter, and we’ll send you a check”?
These steps would put us on the path to a truly egalitarian society, one in which any Californian would be able to present his college diploma as proof of his qualifications, then put his “X” on a job application. This also would solve the problem of illegal immigration, because these college graduates would be qualified only for those jobs that right now “Americans won’t do.”
More higher education: California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo plans to open an engineering program in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, taking advantage of the overabundance of dollars available in the desert kingdom. Of course, only men would be allowed to study there. The Los Angeles Times quoted Kate Van Dellen, president of Cal Poly’s 300-member Society of Women Engineers, “It seems odd that a college with such a great history of women in engineering would partner with a school to start something detracting from that view.”
Well, this is the kind of understatement you’d expect from a student at a California institution, where all are taught respect for diverse cultures. It deserves stronger condemnation. Let’s just call it another argument for increased domestic oil production.
A real crisis: Sure, the dollar is weak, gasoline prices are stuck above $3, home foreclosures are mounting and the state can’t get enough applicants for Cal Grants, but the real trouble is the coming guacamole shortage.
The aforementioned LA Times reports farmers are taking avocado trees out of production due to a 30 percent cutback in water deliveries. We already have $1 avocados, so where will this lead? We’ll tell you: It’s the pits!
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