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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 20, 1977)
Inside Today: A mini-guide to Houston, p. 4. Battalion Thursday, October 20, 1977 College Station, Texas News Dept. 845-2611 Business Dept. 845-2611 A coupon book for cheapskates, p. 6. A trip to Chicago for men’s water polo team, p. 10. A&M has lowest loan default rate By GLENN A WHITLEY Battalion Staff Aggies may be dumb, according to the perennial jokes, but at least they pay their bills. Texas A&M University has the lowest default rate on federally insured Hinson-Hazlewood loans of any other major university in the state, says an official of the Coor dinating Board, Texas Colleges and Universities. Texas A&M has an accumulative default rate of three percent in the 11 years the program has operated, 17 percent lower than the state average, said Mack Adams, head of student services for the coordinating board in a recent interview. This default rate includes accounts defaulted and ac counts presently being sued for default claims. Robert Logan, director of financial aid at Texas A&M, said one of the most important reasons the default rate was so low was the amount of counseling done with each student to make sure he understands his commitment. “Our loans are paid the day they’re made," Logan said. “We have the best student clientele in the coun try.” The type of student attending Texas A&M is probably more conservative than at most schools, and this affects the payback rate, Adams said. The curriculum is tra ditionally aimed at majors that imply stability in family income and occupation, like agriculture and engineer ing, he said. Texas A&M graduates usually have better chances of getting jobs and better starting salaries than many other schools, Adams added. Hinson-Hazlewood loans are given to students on the basis of need. They are approved by the school, and the state of Texas is the lending institution. Bonds are sold to raise money to provide the loans. Considered “large loans, these can be made for up to $1,500 per year. After a student graduates, he has a nine-month grace period, then he must begin to repay the loan in monthly installments. Hinson-Hazlewood loans have lx-en federally insured for the last six years. If a loan is defaulted, the federal government pays the state of Texas the amount of the loans, and then attempts to collect from the borrower. OTHER EDUCATIONAL loans are also federally in sured. These loans are approved by the school and then made by the student s home town bank. It is then the bank's responsibility to inform the student of his com mitment. No figures are available at present on default rates for these bank loans. Some universities have such high default rates that the coordinating board in Austin has put a ceiling on the amount of money available to lend them. Prairie View A&M University and Texas Southern University have default rates of 39 and 49 per cent re spectively. “Inability to locate is the biggest reason for defaults, Adams said. “They leave school, relatives don’t even know where they are. They never even make one pay ment.” One of the terms of the loans is that students keep their whereabouts known to loan officials after they leave school. “THE BIG PROBLEM is that the students are not employed when they get out, ” said A. D. James, direc tor of financial aid at Prairie View. “And the coordinating board is not exercising all its resources to make them repay. He said 50. per cent of the students receiving loans at Prairie View had degrees in a teaching field and could not find jobs when they graduated. He added that most of the students there come from povertv-level house holds. In Texas A&M s case, if the student doesn’t pay, the parents pay. At Prairie View, this is not possible because many of the parents are already on some sort of state assistance," he said. “Any school that is predominately black is going to have a high default rate" said La Joy Kay, acting director of financial aid at Texas Southern University. “Most of our people come from low income families.” TSU is about 90 per cent black, she said. "A lot of students don’t ever graduate and therefore can t repay, she said. TSU has a high drop-out rate of students who have taken out loans, she added. After the students drop out, they cannot get jobs that pay enough to allow them to repay the loans, Kay said. “People that do graduate usually do well in repay ment, she said. Texas A&I University is another school that has many poverty-level, Mexican-American students, but its de fault rate is only seven percent. “Historically, the Mexican-American has repaid his loans, said Juan Villarrel, director of student aid at Texas A&I. “We do keep track of our students. We do a hell of a lot of counseling. ” When they get their notices (of payment due), they do something. You don’t just ignore it (the notices),” Villarrel said. He said one of the reasons the rate was so low was that even though students had low incomes, Mexican-Americans were traditionally raised to honor debts and favors. Students can receive a hardship or employment de ferment if needed, said Adams. Notice must be sent to the proper officials requesting a postponement, how ever. CURRENTLY, 120 days after the first payment is due on an unpaid account, the Texas Attorney General’s of fice sends a letter explaining the borrower’s obligation. Another letter is sent 150 days after it is due, and if a payment is not received 180 days later, the Attorney General s office files suit against the borrower to obtain a default judgement. If such a judgement is granted, the borrower is then legally obligated to pay before selling any real property. Real property is any which requires a title when sold. After a default claim is granted, the State turns over the account to Health, Education and Welfare, (HEW), which attempts to collect through the courts if necessarv. The coordinating board has restricted the amount of lending money available to schools with high default rates. At Prairie V iew, the financial aid office has allowed less than 50 loans this year. Adams said the entire lending process has been tight ened up. Financial aid officials are now required to sign written recommendations for each borrower. Before, the official was to be responsible for carefully screening each applicant, but his written recommendation makes the responsibiltiy more specific, Adams said. School Texas A&M University Number of Loans 4,715 Total Amount $ 7,757,298 Default Rate 3% Money Lost $ 129,652 Southwest Texas University 3,574 $ 5,825,703 7</c $ 243,915 Texas Christian University 417 $ 695,828 8Vc $ 43,529 Texas Tech University 4,541 $ 7,403,938 8 e /c $ 435,654 University of Houston 4,2.56 $ 7,815,093 17</c $ 899,070 University of Texas at Austin 12,403 $ 22,920,229 9</c $ 1,280,813 Prairie View A&M University 8,050 $ 18,828,511 39% $ 6,142,712 Texas Southern University 5,957 $ 12,374,558 45% $ 4,343,659 Texas A&I University 6,274 $ 14,542,886 7% $ 3,206,920 Total for Texas 119,844 $210,865,056 20% $31,294,660 A sampling of major Texas universities and the default rates on their Hinson-Hazlewood loans. radio given two ike Humphrey. . . osition to committee “out of line ” -.awyers Student Texas A&M University Student Senate decided Wednesday night to give Student Radio two months to become solvent be fore making a final decision on its fate early next semester. The Student Radio Board owes an in ternal debt of $5,783.64 to Student Gov ernment. Wednesday’s resolution trans fers $500 to a Student Radio Reserve Ac count to pay any expenses Student Radio cannot meet. Hoyt Thomas, general manger of KANM, said if current success in ad sales continues, “we could make money and I could buy a new suit every week.’ “A lot of people are turning to us” from Houston radio stations also on the cable, Thomas said. Based on Thomas estimates from last spring, KAN M’s listening audi ence is about 6,000. Several senators noted the station provides good music. radio training and public service an nouncements for campus activities. Senators also approve a resolution re commending lighting for the intramural- complex across Wellborn Road. The light ing project, which would cost about $160,000, was recommended more than three hours into the session. Lights should be “provided prior to the spring ’78 softball season.” Amendments to limit scheduling foot ball and softball after midnight and pro hibit use of student service fees for the lights were defeated. Senator Bill Rademaeher said that with out a time limit the intramurals program would continue to expand and soon "the same problem would build up again.” Mike Springer, vice president for finance, said three sources of funds for the project are available. He listed student service fees. Student Government reserve ac counts and interest from those accounts. Comparing the situation to the original construction of the intramural complex in 1976, Vicki Young, vice president for stu dent services, said, “If the Student Gov ernment says Let there be light,’ I feel there will be light without using student service fees. Young said the intramural complex was not built with the fees. Senators also established an Intramural Council to oversee operations of the In tramural Program. Members of the coun cil include representatives from Student Government, RHA, Corps, the Off Cam pus Students Association, Extramurals, Intramural Advisory Committee (chair man), faculty, and health and physical education department as voting members, and the director of the intramural program as a non-voting member. The council will advise on the regulation of intramurals and its budget. At the last Senate meeting. Director of Intramurals Dennis Corrington requested that the council only have advisory powers. In the advise ‘get nasty’ more months original draft of the resolution, the council also had policy-making duties. Senators created a committee on com mittees which Will evaluate Senate com mittees and report on their effectiveness each year. The Senate changed a bill passed in March 1977, which established a similar committee, but drew its members from the three branches of Student Gov ernment. Now the committee is under di rection of the Rules and Regulations legis lative committee. The committee may re view committees only in the legislative branch which are not one of the five stand ing committees (on academic affairs, ex ternal affairs, finance, rules and regula tions and student services). Discussion of the measure took almost an hour, as charges and countercharges of the bill’s effects bounced across Senate chambers in 204 Harrington. Senator Mike Humphrey said the bill as passed last semester “would be out of line” because it may have usurped some of the president’s powers to administer legislation. W. Scott Sherman, former senator and author of the bill, said, “Someone else should be able to tell the Senate what the Senate has done, defending his scheme of committee mem bers from all three governmental branches. The Senate rejected his reason ing. “I think it’s a shame the legislative body is not able to form a committee to review itself...We don’t need to call in others,” said Young. Allison King, vice president for rules and regulations, said she was accepting applications for members of the new committee. In other action, the Senate rejected a resolution to put dorm directories in easily accessible spots in dorms. The $44,919.96 Student Senate budget was almost ap proved, but a motion to reconsider the bill was entered into the minutes, delaying ac tion until the next Senate meeting, Nov. 2. Hunphrey announced A&M University will host the spring Texas Students Associ ation Convention. No date has been de termined. By LIZ NEWLIN ,(, t nasty, get tough, and write letters ‘a lawyer if you want to get results, say I attorneys-turned-authors. ™n Striker and Andrew Shapiro advise superthreats” to nake slow land s' sprawling bureaucracy or bumbling plaint handlers listen. Ver age consumers can learn to make pweats, according to John Striker Andrew Shapiro, who have written ^threats - How to Sound Like a cl Ji'r and Get Your Rights On Your II mawson and Associates Publisher, , $9.95). i , e successful superthreat impresses •atimidates the receiver, they say. It is e with legal slang and case citations ] S , C are recommended by the authors) has an official ppearance. Threatening dire legal consequences makes life miserable for the person who has not granted your request “forthwith.’ Essential to the superthreat, which usually follows a polite but ignored letter, is to let the recipient think he is dealing with a lawyer or someone very knowledgable about his legal rights. Load the super threat letter with headings like “Notice, , “Statement of Complaint,” or “Demand for Action,” with the specifics of the case filled in. “It should be just threatening enough to make the one handling it want to push the responsibility upstairs to someone else, just in case,” Striker says. Tips for writing decent complaint letters comprise the most informative part of the book, the authors say. “You’d be surprised how many sane, re sponsible, well-dressed people turn out some really bad crank letters u'hen they are trying to get action on a Complaint,” they write. “One glance and anybody with any sense is going to throw one of those handwritten six-page jobs right in the wastebasket. People make their com plaints much too personal.” But don’t go too far, they warn. There’s a difference between writing like a lawyer and pretending to be one. “We re not ad vocating blackmail, and we don t recom mend making your demand so unreason able that it’s a tossup which is worse, the request or the threat.” If the superthreat is too real, the recip ient may call his lawyer to battle the “paper lawyer who complains in the let ter. And the suit he presses won’t be at the cleaners. NiailancTs army overthrows civilian government Thursday Thailand’s Vp Press International Thailand - <>rtes ‘overthrew the civilian gov- ^ nt Thursday to form a new rev- m a< ^ m inistration, official radio jfW announced. ir e " Se 'Minister Adm. Sangad | nornina l leader of a military r ik ct °her, again was the coup ’ ,he radio said, I t r L ev<,luti( > n ary administration de- ] h ( e ^° n , stituti< >n abolished and dis- 0 1 me year-old government of r,» f i nistt ’ r fan in Kraivixien and the nkcJ Parliament. ^ een ' n power just two days a year and reportedly was over- lurs day because he refused a le to reshuffle his cabinet. J V ;k lti<mary « rou P has seized jg his time to improve the economic and security situations of the na tion and to maintain the institutions of na tions, religion and king,” the announce ment said. “The revolutionary group will change as little as possible. “As of 6 p.m. (7 a.m. EDT) the situation in the country is under control of the rev olutionary group,” official radio and tele vision announced. All military and civil servants will continue their work, and no orders are to be changed. “Anyone refusing to obey the orders of the revolutionary group will be severely punished, the broadcast said. Half an hour after the first coup an nouncement, Tanin was reportedly in his office at government house. There was no sign of violence in Bangkok. The armed forces were placed on alert, but no trouble was reported. Senior generals in the chain of com mand, including Sangad and supreme commander Gen. Kriangsak Chamanand, appeared the leaders of the coup, as they were Oct. 6, 1976, the date of the last military coup. Thursday marked the seventh major change of government in Thailand in less than six years, not counting minor cabinet shuffles. Political sources said Tanin had been under military pressure for several days to reshuffle his cabinet. At least nine of the 17 members were to be kicked out, the sources said. But Tanin, a former Thai Supreme Court justice, reportedly refused, saying the military had given him a four-year mandate to run the country when he was appointed by the generals last Oct. 22. As a result, with an apparent impasse between Tanin and the military, the gen erals simply seized power in Thailand’s fourth coup of the decade. \ . . and that’s Looking at the flowers in the Texas A&M Univer sity Floral Test Garden, A&M Consolidated kin dergarteners display varied reactions. The Idn- the Poison Ivy’ dergarten class is studying fall flowers and trees as one of their school projects. Battalion nhoto bv MiYhn<>l FV«I