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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 29, 1977)
Page 4B THE BATTALION MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 1977 ‘Now you’ve got to buy your ticket’ nrriii Editor's note: The following is a speech Houston Post columnist Lynn Ashby made at summer com mencement ceremonies Aug. 13, 1977. By LYNN ASHBY President Miller, Dr. Williams, members of the A&M administra tion and faculty, parents, friends, .fiancees, lovers, creditors, camp fol lowers, sorrowful bartenders and ■disappointed next-of-kin, and, of icourse, you graduates, I thank you Tor having me here today. It shows a ^certain amount of taste on your part. Lynn Ashby Besides, I always enjoy missionary work. I bring you greetings from civilization. (Here Ashby made a “Hook ’em Horns” sign). Actually, I suppose I should show more reverence around here, for only at Texas A&M have scientists discovered how to turn a longhorn into a turkey. Coming here this morning, I wanted to wear my school’s colors, but these days, when you see orange and white it means Anita Bryant at a Klan rally. Looking at this crowd, all dressed up in your graduation robes, no more can they say that black is beautiful. But I didn’t survive Highway 6 all the way from Houston to discuss your wardrobe, however drab it may be. No, I came here today to collect, because you owe me some money, and I want it back. As a mat ter of fact, I have personally been delegated by the people of Texas to come here today and collect their I.O.U.s. What I’m talking about, in case you haven’t guessed, it that you have been riding the gravy train long enough, and now you’ve got to buy your ticket. For all these years you have been attending a tax sup ported institution of higher learn ing, so to speak. You have been eat ing in the public trough, and the public is now presenting the tab. Take out your pencils and paper and get this down, because you have a right to know just how much it’s going to be. You also have the right to remain silent and the right to call a lawyer. HERE AT A&M YOU ARE pay ing 13.2 percent of the cost of your education, at the University of Texas-Austin it’s 12.6 percent and at the University of Houston — 15.6 percent. I’m not talking about how much you spend; I’m not talkin about the cost of food and lodging, which you would have anywhere you lived. I’m not talking about your gasoline bills, and what you dropped at the Dixie Chicken, nor am I referring to the amount of money your parents have been sending you all this time. I am strictly speaking about the cost of your education. For about every one dollar you or your parents are paying to A&M, the taxpayers of Texas are paying another eight. You are paying, on the average, $334 — the state kicks in another $2,527. This fiscal year, the good people of Texas are forking over about $1.2 billion for public higher education, and that’s you. Texas may be a backwater in some areas — such as legislators — but when it comes to spending money on you, we re generous to a fault. Over the past decade, Texas has ranked third of the 50 states in the amount of funds we’ve spent on higher education. Over the past two years, we’ve in creased our spending faster than any state but one — Alaska. I got back from Alaska on Wednesday. Th ere are a lot of Teasips up there — it’s known as the ice of Texas. A lot of our money spent on higher education comes right here, to Texas A&M. Over the last two years, funding for this school has gone up 64 percent — that’s 64 per cent in two years. I realize that some of you phil osophy majors are having trouble keeping up with me, so after it’s over, ask a math major what Tm talking about. Maybe he will tell you that the total investment which Texas has in its physical plant right Opinion here at A&M is now $264 million, wholesale. You’ve been playing with more than $56 million worth of equipment, and I won’t even go into the cost of your basketball team. Part of this money goes to pay your professors. You may have noticed all the El Doradoes parked in the faculty parking lot. Here at A&M, they pay the professors from petty cash; the average salary is about $15,500. Let’s not get bogged down in dol lars; let’s just remember that the State of Texas operates on a pay-as- you-go basis by law. Every dollar going out has to be matched by a dollar coming in. So when I tell you that we now have three billion dol lars invested in just the physical plants of our state’s public colleges and universities — three billion — please remember that virtually every single one of those dollars came from the sweaty backs of the people of this state. They earned that money, then they gave it to *X; -*y. WELCOME BACK AGGIES! Make Us Your Party Headquarters For Football Season We’re within Walking Distance of All A&M Dorms Ice 10 lb. bag 68c AT EVERY DAY SPECIAL PRICES HOT OR COLD BRAND 6-PACK CANS 6-PACK BOTTLES CASE CANS COORS 1.67 1.67 6.68 SCHLITZ 1.59 1.54 6.36 OLD MIL 1.39 1.29 5.56 BUD 1.59 1.54 6.36 MILLER 1.66 1.62 6.64 MILLER-LITE 1.69 1.69 6.76 SCHLITZ-LIGHT 1.69 — 6.76 LONE STAR 1.49 1.59 6.36 PEARL 1.50 — 6.00 MICHELOB 1.75 1.75 7.00 SCHLITZ MALT i 6 oz 1.89 — 7.56 FALSTAFF 1.50 — 6.00 MALT DUCK FLAVORS — 1.59 6.36 The ARCO STATION CORNER OF UNIVERSITY & STASNEY Open ’til 10 p.m. every night FREE 5-Minute Car Wash (With This Coupon) offer good through Sept, 11 SUPER OIL SPECIAL Award Oil Filters $ 1" 69cU Major Brands Oil 30W 59c/qt. multi-grade Havoline - Pennzoil - Amalie - Castrol Quaker State - Uniflow you. Unlike the federal govern ment, there is no paper mill crank ing out dollars to make up for the deficit. All of this money came from Texans — the people you live with and live off of. When you leave here today to go home to Pampa or Houston or Har lingen or Waco, along the way you’ll see Texans plowing fields and wip ing windshields and shining shoes. You be nice to them, because they put you right here, right now. Do we have accounting majors here? Hold up your clean hands. No, your clean hands. Oh, those were your clean hands. OK, to get you through four years of Texas A&M cost $7,950.83 each. Any biology majors? It cost $8,596.98. Chemical engineers are expensive — $10,828. Any journalists? You come cheap, and you always will. A mere $7,851.76. Again, remember that you paid about one-eighth of this. I paid the rest. Mormons as — and get — two years’ service from their young people. 601 UNIVERSITY 846-1591 WE HAVE A FEW DOC TORAL CANDIDATES HERE. Boy, did you run up a tab. Above and beyond the cost of getting your bachelor’s degrees, it cost an extra 29 grand to get a Ph.D. in educa tional administration. If you got your doctorate in English, $33,000 extra just so you can tell us if this money was loaned or lent to you. And, if you got your doctorate in chemistry or oceanography, above and beyond the cost of getting your bachelor’s degree, it cost an extra $55,264.04. There are no veterinarians gar- duating here today and just as well. To get a vet from freshman to fulh fledged veterinarian, it costs more than $119,000. Most of them make that back by Halloween. All right, now you know the bill you’ve run up around here. You may have thought we weren’t keep ing tabs, but we were. We know who you are. We want our money back, because 1 now will give you the first and foremost rule of the outside world; there is no free lunch. So, now, the waiter will pre sent you with the check. Actually, I had planned on having the Ross Volunteers pass among you with fixed bayonets and collect, but there are probably a few out there who don’t have the funds right now, and I know better than to take your checks. Indeed, there may be some chemical engineering Ph.D. who doesn’t have the 11 grand on him for his bachelor’s degree, to say nothing of the )55,000 we spent on him for his doctorate. So, I’ve got a better idea. If you can’t pay it, you can work it out. One way or another, we ll get it. Work it out. It’s not such a new idea. If you were graduating today from West Point or Annapolis, Uncle Sam would be collecting his pound of flesh for your degree. You’d be spending several years in uniform. You ROTC people know about that. France requires at least one year of service from its young men, in the military or in some Peace Corps-like pursuit. Some of them go to Louisiana to teach French to Ca juns; I think they get combat pay. The Soviet Union demands that its highly educated citizens repay the state for their education before im migrating to other lands. And the SO, AS YOU CAN SEE, my idea of you working off your debt is no revolutionary, starry-eyed plan. It is done all over the place, but not in Texas. Until now. At this point you are probably saying to yourself, “This is ridicul ous. I’ve always been told that I should be educated. I’ve been told that a full education was my right. It’s owed to me.” Yes, we told you that. But we lied. You have no right to the education you now have. You have simply been lucky enough to draw the white bean. A lot of people in this state who cannot afford to send their own children to A&M have sent you instead. So, as I said, you should pay them back. You civil engineers can go to work for the Department of High ways and Public Transportation put ting bumps in our freeways, or whatever it is you do. You teachers can go teach — for free. Journalists can go to work as information flacks in state agencies. Now, there is a problem with all you philosophy and English majors. It bothered me for awhile, just where the public needed your talents. Then, driving up here from Houston, it hit me. There’s a lot of litter along the highways.... The State of Texas needs physi cians. Almost one out of every 10 counties in Texas has no doctors. The people of this state are spend ing on the average, for each medical student each year, $23,554. That’s per student, per year. Incidentally, don’t think that by going to a private medical school your debt to Texas will be less — state aid to Baylor College of Medicine boils down to $33,435 per student per year. State aid to both the Baylor and the UT dental schools is more than $19,000 a year for each student. I don’t think it’s asking too much of our future doctors and dentists to put down their nine irons long enough to help repay the gigantic cost of their edu cation — money spent on them, by us. As you can see, there are just all sorts of jobs around for you to do, to work off your debt. In Texas we are appropriating an average of $75.07 from every man, woman and child in this state, to run our higher edu cation program this year. Again, this isn’t just funny money; it is labor money, and a person has to work just as hard to earn a dollar for your education as he does to make a dol lar for food to put on his table. There is no free lunch. utes pw ■ nt - ind cr ■ s, f»- . V* . ittiag I 5 hel lare EACH OF YOU HAS SOME TALENT, probably the result of what you learned right here at A&M, which can be used briefly for the benefit of the people who paid your way through .school — the people of Texas, people you never saw and never will see, farmers in Plainview, pharmacists in Pharr, school teachers in St. Augustine, even journalists in Houston. Rationalize it any way you want. You can well say that you will return this money and a lot more over the years through your state taxes. I doubt it. I doubt that the small Texas taxes you will pay will cover the cost of the roads you use, the salaries of the teachers who teach your children the game wardens and highway patrolmen and* lution experts run uphere.lj it. Some of you already li© plane ticket out of state. \ never set foot in Texas again, have my way. Some of you \ some of you will go bankripi some of you will become stale] lators. Frankly, I recommetl first two over the latter. Cln are you won’t repay thefo debt you have runupherea! • ^ over the past years. And, dj are, you won’t offer yourservi the state for free. I suspect* leave here today I will still set] along the highways. You won’ll auSl the slum children, and you 1 take care of the sick and the; and you won’t repay what you l0rn IT been loaned, not by workingi & les 11 OK, I ve got one otheridei) just full of ideas to get ray back. I want you togooutanili job and make lots of money.Ti want you to give someofitto A&M; I want you to stack it Dr. Williams’ desk. I want build new classrooms and bun books and endow chairs for sors. Not nickels and dimes.il accept nothing less $10,()()(). ... a year, each. This way, others can come future years to learn what h! loo caneck eaneck is Commi for; I would have gone toll they found out my parents married.” When they call yournamekf a few minutes, and youcomei( this stage. I’ll be watchingili remembering who you are,bit I want my money backoratls want it for A&M — coins,In stocks, small unmarked bills,b from Duval County. I’ll evei Duval County. Why shouldlb different? So just remember yourdd this school. I’m not talking; some obscure, philosophical^ society. You philosophy majuti discuss that while you pickiip( cans along Interstate High™ No Tm talking about yourvets debt to Texas A&M. Without school, today you’d bejustan unemployed graduate. I congratulate you ongettig far. I realize it wasn’t easy- me six years. Your joy today ceeded only by that ofyourpi and the taxpayers of Texas, I AM NOT GOING T01 YOU to go onward and upward] know the direction. lamnol to tell you that the world there eagerly awaiting yourii we’ve gotten along just finem you. I am going to tell yoi there’s room at the top and lonely up here. No doubt today your mostff emotions can be expressed ii words: “Tm out!” I’ve gotDfi you; you’re not out, you’re in you can help stoke the gravy! Now you can help send other men and women to A&M, school, this state, was noth takers. It was built by given have been offered a good * p e n s i v e education. Wh at)« with it is up to you. Thus(i have been takers, now its turn. Come on up here now a* your diplomas. You worked) get this far. It’s time to cell and have a good time. You good. There may he no free! but this is the dessert. AGGIE, don’t be a NURD Stay informed with the only daily in Brazos County which gives you all these features: • What & when it’s on the Boob Tube and the Big Screen. • Where to go for specials, be it food, clothes or those special wheels. • All the news — world, nation, state, city and A&M. • Doonesbury and Peanuts. • The best Jock coverage in the area. R( It s p To help keep you from becoming the subject of another Aggie joke we have a Super Special Deal for you. For particulars on our half price offer Fall Semester $7.00 School Year $14.00 Call: Circulation Department 822-3707 The Eagle Serving Bryan and College Station Qsi rfo l 'OUs; ^onc V, % %tii "frei \d(]