Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 8, 1981)
he Battalion Serving the Texas A&M University community Wednesday, April 8, 1981 College Station, Texas Vote in today’s runoff elections Student lobby groups work to kill tuition bill USPS 045 360 Phone 845-2611 The Weather Today Tomorrow High 83 High 82 Low 57 Low 61 Chance of rain. 30% Chance of rain. . . . . . . 20% By TERRY DURAN Battalion StafF Deliberations continue in Austin on legislation to double college tuition rates. However, Texas A&M officials are not as gloomy as some think they should be. Efforts are underway by lobbyists from several student groups to prevent two bills that would raise tuition from getting out of committee. Six of the 11 senate committee members would have to vote against the bill to kill it in committee; so far, four senators have voiced opposition. The Texas Student Lobby, an independent student group headquartered in Austin, is encouraging students to appear at the house committee meeting April 13 to testify against the bill. Senate Bill 925, now under consideration by the senate higher education committee, is scheduled to be heard by the full senate April 25. The measure would raise in-state under graduate tuition from $4 to $8 per semester credit hour; out-of-state tuition would jump from $40 to $80 per credit hour. In-state medical school tuition would jump from $400 to $3,600 per 12-month academic year, while resident dental students will have to pay $2,500 a year—up from $400 a year. Rep. Bo Crawford of Beaumont has introduced a similar bill, HB 2221, into the state House of Representatives. The House higher education committee will hold its first hearings on the bill April 13. The hearing is open to the public. “Anybody can testify,” TSL member Amy Johnson told The Battalion Tuesday. “The more people that show up, the better we can show opposition to the bills.” Johnson said she anticipates “a lot of students from all over the state” at the hearing. Sources in the state capital say the pivotal senate commit tee members are Lindon Williams of Houston, E. L. Short of Lubbock and Kent Caperton of College Station. Caperton Tuesday in a telephone interview; “I think we should pass a tuition increase only as a last resort. I am proud that we are able to offer students a relative ly inexpensive education, but you have to look at the total picture to be realistic.” Texas resident students now pay only 4.4 percent of their educational costs through tuition, down from 15.8 percent in 1957, when tuition was a flat $50 per semester. Caperton said he had not decided whether he would vote to kill the bill in committee. “We’ll just have to wait and see,” he said. Some sources predict a significant drop in enrollment if Texas tuition is doubled in addition to President Ronald Reagan’s proposed $9.2 billion cutback in federal student aid over the next five years. However, several Texas A&M officials disagree. Texas A&M presidential assistant Maylon Southerland is one of them. “We don’t anticipate an enrollment decline at A&M,” he said. “The quality of the academic program and the overall image of the University make it a positive place that people want to attend. The problem will be dealing with continued growth.” Southerland said he thought the increase for the average in-state student, from about $60 (the fee for 15 credit hours) to about $120, “would not be huge. “Certain costs just have to be passed along to the student,” he said. “I don’t think we are pricing ourselves out of the market.” Business Affairs Vice President Howard L. Vestal agrees. “I don’t think the tuition will change one thing as far as enrollment goes,” he said. “There may be a few hundred that have real financial problems, but I don’t think there will be a significant impact.” Students must re-pay loans, sooner or later @1 H Is that a block or a tackle? Staff photo by Greg Gammon ER % Former Aggie basketball player David Goff is blocked by Oiler tight end Mike Barber as quar terback Gifford Neilsen (13) looks on. The Aggie team, made of former Texas A&M players and other area players and coaches, played an ex hibition game with members of the Houston Oil er football team. The game was sponsored by first-year vet medicine students as a fund-raising event. New editors nominated lor Aggieland, Battalion in Editors for the summer and fall Bat- ion and the 1982 Aggieland were lominated Tuesday night. Angelique Copeland, a senior jour- ulism major from Fort Worth, was lominated for editor of the summer and all Battalion. The Student Publications Board voted five to one in favor of Cope land for the summer Battalion and four to two for the fall position. Copeland was a staff reporter for The Battalion in the spring of1979, as well as sistant city editor in the fall of 1980 K3f and managing editor this semester. “I would like to see The Battalion more responsive to students at Texas A&M, since this is their paper,” she said. The other candidate was Becky Swanson, a junior journalism from Taylor. Swanson was managing editor last summer and city editor last fall. The board also nominated Diane Yount as editor of the 1982 Aggieland. Yount is a sophomore pre-med major from San Antonio. Yount was editor of the yearbook at John Marshall high school in San An tonio. She is currently serving as editor of the features and women’s sports sec tions of the 1981 Aggieland. Yount won in a five to one vote over Wayne Cook, who is the current editor of the 1981 Aggieland. The nominations will now go to J.M. Prescot, vice president for academic affairs, for approval. By KATHY O’CONNELL Battalion StafF Students who fail to pay back loans may think they can get away with it, but those who do so will probably pay later — one way or another. There are various ways to collect money from students who have de faulted on loans, said Jeff Whitehurst, assistant director of the Texas Guaran teed Student Loan Corporation in Au stin. TGSLC is a non-profit service orga nization that is not affiliated with state or federal agencies. The organization acts as a “glorified insurance agency for banks,” he said. TGSLC purchases the loans from lending institutions so they don’t have to handle defaults, Whitehurst said. Before TGSLC purchases loans, the lending institution issues notices of de linquency 30, 60 and 120 days after the first payment is due. After 120 days, Whitehurst said, TGSLC purchases the loan from the lending institution and then pursues collection of loan payments. He said the first step TGSLC takes in collecting payments is to get a financial judgment against the student in court. He said the judgment is a court record indicating that the student owes the money. These judgments are renewed every five years, he said. However, state law requires that judgments be filed every ten years. Whitehurst said a student who has defaulted on a loan can also be tracked down through the Texas Department of Public Safety when he renews a driver’s license. “Quite simply,” he said, “if you’re caught speeding, you’re in a little bit of trouble if you’ve defaulted on a loan.” TGSLC also turns in the student’s name and financial record to credit bureaus. These bureaus are established coast-to-coast, he said, and when a stu dent applies for a credit card or other credit it won’t be granted. Another way to collect payments, he said, is if the student works for the state. TGSLC has the authority to hold — but not to cash — the person’s paycheck. He said the check is held until a reason able repayment plan is negotiated. As a last resort, Whitehurst said, they turn the student’s name over to a collection agency. He said collection agencies “are always 100 percent legal in everything they do. If a student has defaulted on a loan, this makes it difficult to secure a loan to buy property or a car, he said. In addition to making a financial judgment against the student, White hurst said they will seek a fraud judg ment if it can be proven that the student didn’t use the loan for educational pur poses. For example, students have been known to buy cars or to invest in certifi cates of deposit. Since the GSL programs are subsi dized by the federal government, he said, committing fraud is a felony. Whitehurst added that abuse of the GSL programs is one of the reasons why President Ronald Reagan is proposing changes in the program. TGSLC has only been in operation since Jan. 2, Whitehurst said, so there have been no defaults on loans to this date. Whitehurst said it’s difficult to deter mine how many students default on loans, since repayments are made to various education authorities or lending institutions. Compared to a national default rate of approximately 17.5 percent, the de fault rate on student loans at Texas A&M University is between 2.5 and 3 percent, said Dr. Bill McFarland, dire ctor of financial aid. In the National Direct Student Loan, the default rate was 3 percent for 1979 and 2.5 percent for 1980, said Andrea Derrig, an accountant in the loan sec tion of the fiscal office. The NDSL program differs from the GSL in that the federal government allocates money to Texas A&M to make loans, instead of a student securing a loan from a lending institution. Stu dents must fill out a financial aid form to establish financial need. Derrig said they receive an author ization from the financial aid office on the amount of money the student can get. She said the fiscal office then issues a check or cash for that amount. The interest rate on NDSL loans is 3 percent but the rate will increase to 4 percent June 1, she said. Iran sits on jugular of the West’s oil’ ex-hostage says lion i M ‘modi and By PHYLLIS HENDERSON Battalion StafF Iran has great strategic importance for the United States, and that cannot be forgotten nor ignored, for mer Iranian hostage Richard Queen told approximate ly 700 people Tuesday night in Rudder Theater. Tt is a country that has great strategic value in the Mirld,” Queen said in his speech sponsored by Politic- »1 Forum. It is situated on the “jugular of the West’s oil,” ?ueen said. “They control the oil from Iraq, they ttntrol the oil from the Gulf states which are on the Persian Gulf and they control the oil from Saudi Arabia. The West can’t afford to have all this oil cut off. ” However, Queen said, the situation now in Iran is toe of confusion. “Generally it’s controlled chaos,” he Sid, "and the control is aring. The control depends on one old man (Ayatollah Hhomeini) — a very old man — and when he dies, it’s issible you might have a civil war.” Iran is divided into two factions, the moderates and e religious fanatics, Queen said. The religious fac- ion is supported by the communists, he said, and the crates are supported by other leftist groups. “The country has really fragmented,” Queen said, "“and that fragmentation is now too great for Khomeini to smooth over.” Iran is also facing a war with Iraq that has stalemated and drained the country of most of its economic re sources, Queen said. “It is a war which has really brought home to them just how isolated Iran is in the world,” he said. “I think this, more than anything else, ended the hostage situation — Iran’s discovery that it’s important not to be cut off from the world. ” Queen said the first two months of his captivity were the worst. He said his knowledge of the language was at times a curse, because he would hear snatches of conversation which he would misunderstand. “I would just hear Wednesday or Thursday, ” Queen said, “and I would latch onto that date.” He said he would hope that that was the day they would be re leased, and then be disappointed to find out that it was the day the mpqnts were returning to their village. “My morale would soar,” he said, “and then the day arrived and nothing happened, and my morale would just plummet. It was like being on a roller coaster — ups and downs — and each down was worse.” As time passed, Queen said, he began to accept his fate as a hostage. “I was withdrawing from the world as it existed at that time,” he said, “and I was building up my own fantasy world.” He said he never lost touch with reality, but began to remember happier periods in his life, college and high school. Queen was released by the Iranian militants July 11, 1980, because he had developed multiple schlerosis. “Coming back to freedom while the other 52 were still there was very difficult,” Queen said. He said, however, that the change he saw in the country on his return made the ordeal he suffered worth it. “When I returned ... I sensed a new mood in the country, ” he said. “I’d never seen a country regain its self-confidence so quickly. I saw people feeling united for the first time in years. This has shown that in a crisis, we are essentially a united country. “It has made, at least what I suffered, worth it.” Queen diplomatically sidestepped hostile questions from foreign students after his speech concerning the United State’s support of the Shah of Iran. The crowd, however, was not as polite, greeting these questions with hisses. “The United States was willing to support the pre sent regime if it had been given the chance,” Queen said. “We just don’t want the Soviet Union in Iran.” In answer to another question, Queen said he felt the U.S. should have refused publicly to deal with the militants from the beginning. “Carter. . . tipped too much of our hand,” he said. Photo-George Dolan Former hostage Richard Queen spoke on his 250 days of captivity m Iran in a speech sponsored by Political Forum Tuesday night. Queen not only related his feelings on the hostage crisis, but discussed the ordeal’s effect on the present world situation.