Boo to the Arizona Board of Regents for slashing the AIMS scholarships. The good news is that ABOR isn’t doing away with the scholarship completely, but Arizona high school students will no longer receive a tuition waiver to the three state universities for passing the required high school graduation exam. The first group to be affected by this cut is current high school sophomores, and those who receive the scholarships will only receive a fourth of freshman-year tuition, as opposed to a full waiver. This removes a huge incentive for many Arizona residents to move on to college. Not to mention, it could hurt plans to dramatically increase college enrollment in the state.
Bravo to Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg for donating $100 million to Newark, N.J., schools — even if it was a random act of philanthropy. The rumors about this “out of the blue” donation are flying around the impending Oct. 1 release of David Fincher's “The Social Network,” which makes Zuckerberg out to be the villain of his own biopic. Zuckerberg said, “I wish that nobody made a movie of me while I was still alive.” You can’t help but feel bad for the guy. He did, after all, give us the most popular social networking site, which has undoubtedly helped us through many boring lectures.
Boo to Starbucks. As if half of our minimum-wage paychecks don’t go toward its over-priced water-concentrates, sugar pumps, and milk, it’s raising prices — again. Perhaps as some cruel way to expose just how desperate and addicted the coffee culture is, the company has tried to make amends for those of us wrapped around its little frothing wands by only upping the price of laborious drinks, meaning brewed coffee will probably stay the same price or go lower. Unfortunately, the price of the cocoa bean has forced other coffee outlets to also raise their java prices too; it looks like the world has some groggy days in its near future
Bravo to the Phoenix Suns for giving head coach Alvin Gentry a contract extension through the 2012-2013 season. Gentry quickly returned the Suns to the most entertaining team in the NBA and followed it up with a return to the Western Conference Finals in 2009-2010. From building an amazing bench to creating amazing chemistry, the man has won over plenty of the Phoenix Suns faithful. The extension was well deserved.
Boo to the Arizona Diamondbacks for setting the Major League Baseball record for strikeouts in a season. As of Thursday morning the team had tallied 1,417 total strikeouts, with ten games remaining on the season, 18 past the previous record of 1,399 set by the Milwaukee Brewers in 2001. Five players currently have more than 130 strikeouts this year, including the single season record holder Mark Reynolds with 204 (he had 223 strikeouts in 2009). The record is a nice little slap in the face to go along with another 90-loss season.
Want to join the conversation? Send an email to opiniondesk.statepress@gmail.com. Keep letters under 300 words and be sure to include your university affiliation. Anonymity will not be granted.
Follow The State Press on Twitter or like us on Facebook.
