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Opinion
Pa ge'
[Tuesday, January 19,1993
The Battalion
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College scenes, 'welfare queens'
Government redistribution offers cash crops for all
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Editorials
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latest victoi
Promises, promises
Campaign's over, so is change?
his is a pretty conservative univer-
sitv ff you listen to conversations
between students on campus, most
of the comments that you'll hear have a
fair amount of rightward lean to them. I
tend to agree with the gist of most of
these comments, but every time that I
hear someone gripe about "people that
would take welfare," or "welfare
queens," I think about a story I once
heard.
This story was about a guy named Joe.
Joe graduated from high school and sat
down to decide what he wanted to do
with his life. He was a bright kid, and he
had a lot of options. However, only one
choice really stood out from the begin
ning: Joe decided that he wanted to grow himself a money
tree. There were lots of advantages to growing such a tree.
DAVID
BROOKS
Columnist
seated out a \yith President-elect Clinton's in
win over ^mguration looming in the head-
iton extended S reat attention will be paid to
. Rollie Whii? rom i ses made during the cam-
ng the Aggiiwign.
iarone's squa Unfortunately, some of the issues
-eakers, fallir^hich proved most important to the
. electorate already seem to be in
landed again^ggj. 0 f being compromised. The
r pmtaeda a nkl <,e . teo , ric u ri f e of Ross P 6 ™ 1 S P°!-
itrebound thF ed t ^ ie issue m this year s
on shot 51 the budget deficit. Presi-
>sed to A&Mient-elect Clinton promised to
achieve significant reductions in the
he Aggies wilJeficit by the end of his term,
and emergir £ ven before his inauguration,
ldecl 15 P oinl Clinton and his advisers have be-
s logged a sei
ime, but score",
his season av 1
to broadcast disturbing signals
indicate doubts about their
ability — or desire — to accomplish
such reductions. At the same time,
Clinton also seems to be waffling on
his promise to enact a tax cut for the
middle class.
Campaign promises are cam
paign promises, and claims that
cannot be delivered will always be
made in the heat of the fray. How
ever, President-elect Clinton por
trayed himself as a candidate of
change during the campaign. It is
incredibly important that he stick to
the spirit of these promises — even if
he is unable to implement every de
tail.
The American people voted for a
change, and they deserve to see the
valid expression of their wishes.
For one thing, money trees were very prestigious. If you had
one, you were assumed to possess certain intelligence, skills,
and abilities that placed you in the upper half of society. At
the same time, the money tree obviously provided a means to
an income.
There were some caveats that Joe had to consider when
making the decision to grow his money tree. Each tree took
four or five years to mature. If you wanted to grow a tree, you
had to perform all the necessary labor yourself. The labor it
self was intensive, at least during the growing season, Septem
ber through May. The job involved several hours of work
each day and considerable preparation each night. Once the
tree was grown, only the owner could reap the harvest: mon
ey trees were owner-specific. Finally, growing a money tree
took a considerable monetary investment.
After he had made his decision to grow a money tree, Joe
had to make one further choice: what kind of tree to grow.
There were all kinds of trees — ones with bumt-orange leaves,
or crimson leaves, or blue and white leaves. Each type of tree
had different advantages and disadvantages. Some trees cost
much more to grow, but produced more money when they
matured. Some cost less, but produced money at a slower
rate.
The choice really wasn't very difficult for Joe. His grandfa
ther and both of his parents had grown a particular type of
tree. Joe loved everything about this tree, from its maroon and
white leaves on down. However, Joe's decision became even
easier when he discovered an amazing fact: If he decided to
grow the tree of his choice, the state government would pay
for over half the cost of growing it. When he first made this
discovery, Joe was amazed, but it was true: Another type of
tree of equal quality would cost more than twice as much.
Once this fact became clear, it didn't make much sense to
choose any other tree.
As is probably obvious by now, Joe's money tree was a col
lege diploma. There are a lot more considerations involved
with a college education than just money, but money — or fu
ture prosperity — is by far the most compelling reason that
most people attend college. When a state government funds a
university, this support is a plain and simple redistribution of
income from one group of people to another. In this case, the
redistribution is from families that do not have members at
tending college to those who do. What we usually think of as
"welfare" is just a redistribution from those with higher in
comes to those with lower incomes.
Various arguments can be made supporting the state fund
ing of universities. College graduates increase the gross na
tional product with their expanded productivity, but each
graduate reaps the benefits of that increase in the form of
salary and other compensations.
Other arguments can be made concerning the positive ex
ternal benefits of state universities. For example, such univer
sities produce a well-educated work force that is already locat
ed within the state. However, these arguments only hold wa
ter if college education would not exist within a state without
government funding — which is obviously not true in Texas,
at least.
Personally, I am in favor of state funding for higher educa
tion, but I question whether the average Aggie recognizes the
extent to which they are subsidized by the state. As far as I am
concerned, I feel that enough of my income is redistributed
through programs that provide no benefit to me, so I don't
mind some government pork coming my way. However, it
does seem important to recognize the fact that all of us Aggies
are feeding at the government trough like everyone else —
even the "welfare queens."
Brooks is a senior economics major.
tage in the al
/o schools, bi
i matchups,
vf by 43 point
Ticket scalping laws
Cost too high for state taxpayers
State Rep. Betty Denton, D-Waco,
has proposed legislation prohibiting
so-called ticket scalping. The pro
posed legislation is a bad idea.
Aside from the fact that our state
legislators need to attend to more
pressing matters, the proposed leg
islation would likely exacerbate
problems. Sanctions against ticket
scalpers would increase the cost of
tickets because the risk of apprehen
sion would be added to the final
ticket cost. No one is being forced
to buy scalped tickets, which makes
it unlikely that the costs of enforcing
anti-scalping laws are justified.
Questions regarding the perpe
trators of this supposea crime also
arise: Who will be punished? The
scalper who would nave otherwise
been left with a worthless ticket be
cause of conflicting engagements?
Or the event-goer who may not
have planned ahead or somehow
missed out on buying tickets? Sell
ers can recoup the cost of their tick
ets; latecomers can attend the event.
Granted, a number of people
earn a substantial income from pur
chasing blocks of premium tickets
and then selling them at 200 to 300
percent increases on the night of the
event. But this legislation does not
cover ticket brokers who are legally
able to buy up blocks of tickets over
the telephone lines. Such groups act
as ticket agents for those who can
afford to pay high prices but cannot
afford to spend the time waiting in
long lines.
Some concert halls and arenas
have already taken measures to pro
hibit on-site scalping by staffing the
area with local law enforcement of
ficials. Allowing the entertainment
industry and city and county agen
cies to enforce anti-scalping mea
sures in similar manners if they so
choose proves much more efficient
and effective than burdening the
state with yet another a toothless
law.
Attorney explores paradoxes of the university system
Institutions of higher learning succeed in becoming stupid, commit intellectual suicide
A :
versity.
s sort of a hobby. I've
collected 10 common
paradoxes in the uni-
1. We can't find enough
qualified African-Americans
to recruit to our campus, but
somehow our coaches al
ways manage to recruit
qualified African-Americans
"'ho are also outstanding
athletes. We can't explain
how.
GUEST
COLUMNIST
want with the students.
graduates want to rule without being elected.
5. Students already have enough power as con
sumers to determine who shall teach and what
shall be taught. For some reason, however, the
most popular teachers never get tenure, and the
most popular courses are discontinued.
10. The American university is the world's
foremost institution of higher education. But for
reasons we can't explain, we have no one on our
staff whom we can identify as an educator — i.e.,
someone who is responsible to students alone.
2. The majority of our
students are happy with the
"ay we run things. But we
ROBERT
HONIGMAN
6. We can't allow students to select our faculty
because the students would be fleeced by charla
tans offering glamour and entertainment without
educational substance. But since our students are
attracted to our campus by our professors, they
will just have to take our word for it that, "We, the
faculty and administrators, are not charlatans."
can't have majority rule in the university because
students, by definition, don't know what's good
for them.
3. When students question our decisions, we
tell them we are operating the university for their
benefit. But when students are unhappy, we tell
them that the university doesn't exist for them.
7. We tell students that they must grow up and
accept responsibility for their own education
while they are at the university. Then we tell stu
dents that they are not competent to sit on com
mittees that select their courses, curriculum and
professors.
4. We hire the finest research faculty in the
"oriel for our students. But for some reason, the
toore famous the faculty are, the less contact they
8. Academic freedom means that no one can
dictate to faculty what research projects they must
undertake. But by sheer coincidence, our faculty
want to research just what the federal sponsors
want them to research.
9. The university is training the future leaders
of a democratic society. But for some reason our
The above paradoxes illustrate an institution
that does not know itself. All hierarchical institu
tions operate best in ignorance.
The university has sort of a knee-jerk regard for
the truth that runs approximately as follows: "We
try so hard to stay ahead of our competitors, and
we invest so much in trying to win public ap
proval that anything negative has to be denied,
hushed up or ignored if we are to keep our place
in national rankings."
The criteria of policy is not truthfulness or ser
vice, but success and survival. Of course the mod
ern university is a common garden variety of insti
tution — it tries to gain as much from its environ
ment in return for as little as possible. But what
can never be admitted, even at 3 a.m., is that stu
dents are a part of that environment. Think of it
— the world's greatest experts on everything pop
ulate the university. Could they help you if they
wanted to? Probably. It's just that everyone is
powerless.
Lack of power to meet human needs is not an
accident. The deepest and most tragic paradox in
the modern university is that to succeed as an in
stitution, no one must think beyond his or her nar
row concerns or feel anything for others. Students
must be numb. Faculty must be overspecialized.
And leadership must be obsessed with naive boos-
terism. It is essential that everyone must believe
the official lies. The survival and success of the in
stitution come ahead of all other concerns.
In other words, paradox as it may be, the mod
em university succeeds by becoming stupid.
Honigman is an attorney from Birmingham, Mich. He
has recently completed a book entitled, "The Unconscious
University and the Destruction of the Student
Community in America."
Editorials appearing in The Battalion reflect the views of the opinion
page staff and editor-in-chief only They do not represent, in any
way, the opinions of reporters, staff, or editors of cither sections of
the newspaper.
Columns, guest columns, and Mail Call items express the opinions
of the authors only.
The Battalion encourages letters to the editor and wilt print as
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words or less and include the author's name.
Due to space restrictions, guest columns will not be accepted
unless the author contacts the opinion page for prior approval
before submitting columns.
, 1993
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