The big controversy at Arizona State right now is the planned increase of tuition by about ten percent and a $1000 dollar “economic recovery surcharge” for students. Of course everybody is playing the blame game about the tuition hikes. As a result, some pretty ridiculous claims and demands are being made about the whole issue of tuition hikes and funding for colleges.\u00a0 In this post, I want to discuss how many students feel entitled to a free higher education.<\/p>\n
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Let me tell you all about an encounter I had with one of these students. Walking across campus is like driving down an MSR in Iraq but instead of dodging IEDs you are dodging hippies trying to get you to sign some pointless petition. My standard IA drill (or battle drill for you Army pukes) for this\u00a0 situation is to either starting speaking in Arabic or simply to say “Fuck off Hippie.” However today my superior Infantry training failed me and I was sucked into a complex ambush by several attractive female members of the ASU student government. But they were just a deception and out of nowhere appeared some pimply-faced kid who asked me how I felt about the proposed tuition hikes. I told him I honestly didn’t care too much since I was on the GI Bill and that I thought the student government’s solution would inevitably lead to higher taxes. He then told me that a college education was a “human right” and that everyone should be entitled to something like the GI Bill. He then stated that with only veterans receiving the GI Bill that it was just a form of welfare for veterans.<\/strong> After this, our conversation was over.<\/p>\n Lets me be crystal fucking clear: I am not receiving GI Bill benefits simply because I was born or because I am lucky. I am not receiving GI Bill benefits because the government feels sorry for veterans or because we are “victims” of the military or an “unjust war”. It was a benefit that was promised to veterans as part of a contract that required us to give up many of our rights and freedoms and in some cases go into combat where our lives were in danger. Up until last year, veterans even paid up to 1800 dollars (with a kicker) of their own money towards the GI Bill. In some ways, the GI Bill is no different than a benefit a corporation gives to its employees as part of a contract. I don’t see how anybody with a working brain can make any serious comparison of the GI Bill to welfare. The only thing they have in common is that they are paid out by the government. But unfortunately they are a few non-working brains at ASU…<\/p>\n In my view this is the problem: A powerful minority of\u00a0 students, staff, and faculty at ASU have a suffocating sense of entitlement. They feel that a state that is for all intensive purposes broke should increase taxes on millions of Arizonians or increase tuition on thousands of financially stressed students in order to fund the education and employment of a few, who in many cases aren’t contributing anything of value to Arizona or society in general. For example, there are grad students that are being paid and given resources by the school to study the social dynamics of World of Warcraft and XBOX live. Also,while pleading poverty, ASU wants to build a fifth campus in Payson<\/a>, renovate Sun Devil stadium, and continue to expand non-essential services.<\/p>\n Nobody is entitled to a free college education or even guaranteed admission to college. It is something that has to be earned and worked for. Its also something that shouldn’t be funded at the expense of others. My service is how I earned that education and that is how I am paying for it. Jonn and others who post here did the same thing, in many cases serving a lot longer than I did. I’m not going to listen to some punk tell me and my fellow vets our earned benefits are welfare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"