Osama bin Laden wants you to take out student loans.
At least that's what state Rep. Ray Barnes, R-Phoenix, wants you to think. On Thursday, Barnes, a private investigator, told a roomful of students that to expect education funding from the state was ludicrous. Barnes told the assembled students that there was no need to "take a risk in you, when you won't take a risk in yourself."
The trade-off Barnes is referring to is a strange mix between voter apathy and markedly fuzzy math. If students won't vote, why should legislators pay them any heed? So, what's the solution that Barnes proposes? "Take out loans."
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the economy tanked. Barnes affirmed that Arizona needs to rebuild its economy before it doles out any more funding to students and that it makes little sense to acquire loans to fund the state's social services.
But in funding the present, Barnes may be bankrupting the future. If a poor economy and voter apathy are enough to revoke funding for social services, about half of the American population should just have to kiss any government services goodbye.
By taking students away from the public trough, Barnes is going to inspire neither their confidence nor their sense of civic responsibility. The perception that government doesn't care about young people is a driving force behind low voter turnout. But by further turning its back on its students, Arizona is setting itself up for a dismal future indeed.
College students, as we all know, are notoriously strapped for cash. And by telling them they're nothing more than a 'risk' to the state, Barnes is not exactly encouraging their scholastic achievement. Barnes asserts that if students have to take out loans, they'll value their education more. While a wonderfully simplistic thought, it's certainly going to be hard to value your education while you're working overtime to make ends meet.
According to Education Week's Quality Counts 2004 report, Arizona ranks 49th among the 50 states in per-pupil educational spending. How far do we have to slide before people like Ray Barnes realize that students aren't looking for a handout, but only a means to succeed? On a yearly basis Arizona sinks more into its average prisoner than it does its average student.
If the state is so broke, does it really make any sense to place further burden on students? Barnes sure seems hell-bent on rebuilding this state's economy, but I don't see how that's possible when there is no framework supplied for student success. Those who can no longer afford education will make less of an impact on the economy, and those who do decide to pursue a path of higher education may very well do it somewhere else at a loss to both the state and its university system.
Barnes wanted to know whether he should "risk a vote in a university" when its students failed to vote themselves. Barnes should keep in mind that voting isn't compulsory, and it is certainly not a prerequisite for education at the state's universities.
By further alienating student voters, Barnes reinforces the message that the student vote is increasingly meaningless. By cutting funding in their education, Barnes sends the message that maybe education isn't important either.
Brian Clapp is a biology and political science senior. Reach him at brian.clapp@asu.edu.
