or many, college is a time of financial uncertainty. Every year, students for whom tuition money is not a given must roll the dice of need-based aid applications, fill out the annual Free Application for Student Aid and hope that enough money will be provided to allow for another year of education. These students bank on the grants and loans that will be necessary to make up the difference between what a college education costs, and what one can provide for oneself. It is a time of great anxiety, to which I can attest, having gone through it every year since 2001. The days of wondering what will be provided and what will have to be borrowed, in order to afford another year of college, can lead to a good deal of reflection and internal debate about whether all of this is worth it.

That anxiety is intensified by the realization that there is only so much federal money to go around, so changes to the federal student aid program are understandably of great concern to students that rely on this aid. Coming from such a background, I keep a close, wary eye on changes in the structure and distribution of federal aid to college students. Decisions made by politicians and bureaucrats in Washington D.C., have a potentially huge impact on my own ability to continue my education, as well as the ability of others like me.

Therefore, I read with interest this week that Congress had scrapped a rule that required colleges to have at least 50% of their classes in actual classrooms, in order to receive federal student aid. Essentially, the rule change makes it possible for online institutions like the University of Phoenix—now the largest educational institution in the country—to receive and dole out federal aid to their students.

The rule change, which has been encouraged by the Bush administration and achieved through the efforts of many hardworking lobbyists, is part of a growing push by some in this nation to recognize and encourage “innovation in education.” Supporters of the change have also argued that it will allow more nontraditional students—older, low-income, isolated, or working—to attend college and receive the same education afforded to those lucky enough to have found themselves attending traditional forms of higher education.

Yet while these arguments are attractive, they also obscure more troubling aspects of the rule change, lurking just beneath the surface. Although I am certainly not one to argue against the access to more federal money for students to attend college, the new change in requirements for federal student aid represents more than that.

It is part of a troubling shift in the federal stance on higher education, which gives too much recognition to for-profit colleges and universities whose academic records are largely unproven and occasionally even fraudulent. The University of Phoenix has been cited for coming too close to being a “diploma mill,” the type of place where anyone can get a degree with the right amount of cash and a willingness to stare at a computer screen.

Furthermore, the people demanding the rule change were not people interested in achieving equal education for all. They were lobbyists hired by the for-profit institutions that the change will benefit, many of whom have close connections with the Congressional deal-makers who made the change. Indeed, the Assistant Secretary of Education who oversees higher education, Sally Stroup, is herself a former lobbyist for the University of Phoenix, making her arguments about “equal education for all” seem questionable, if not altogether dismissable. (The Inspector General of the Department of Education has publicly attacked Stroup for being too positive about online colleges, often without a factual basis for her claims. He notes that 74 percent of the fraud cases he investigates involve for-profit colleges, according to a report in the New York Times.)

But what about the argument that allowing these for-profit, online institutions to give federal aid to their students will allow more nontraditional students to get the college education they deserve? I find this argument unconvincing for one main reason. Online education is not the education these students deserve. They deserve the face-to-face classroom environment that so many of us have found so stimulating. It may be at a community college, a state university, or a private institution, but it is the classroom that makes a college education, not the computer screen.

By freeing up federal money for online, for-profit universities to use, the federal government has cheapened the value of everyone’s college education. Not only has it placed institutions with questionable reputations on equal footing with traditional colleges that have more rigorous standards, but it has made the online option seem more enticing to students who have already ruled out traditional education either because they think they don’t have the time, or they can’t afford the rising costs at these institutions. If we are serious about allowing more people to get a college education, shouldn’t we make it possible for them to attend real, brick-and-mortar colleges? Only there will they be able to get a real education that will leave them satisfied and will maintain the high standards we demand of our college graduates.

To do this will require freeing up more federal money for higher education, not consistently reducing the size of that pot (as the Bush administration has done) and then spreading what’s left ever more thinly. The Department of Education estimates that this new program will cost $697 million over ten years, money that will be taken from traditional, nonprofit institutions. That will mean a lot more anxiety for many students each year, without a lot of benefit to anyone.
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by Matt Savage

his Sunday marks the third anniversary of the US Invasion of Iraq. Like previous anniversaries, streets around the world will fill with hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters. And like years past, I will be among them. By now, people on all sides of the aisle admit that this war, or at least the way it was fought, was a terrible mistake. After the bombing of a 1,200 year-old Shiite shrine, 4 out of 5

What is there to say on a grim anniversary about what has become the largest American foreign policy disaster since Vietnam?

The initial reaction from many students at Lewis & Clark is, “I told you so.” While this may be satisfying, it will do nothing to help the safety of American troops and the hope for some form of fragile peace in a war-torn country that has already seen more than enough violence. With an approval rating of 37%, the American people have clearly lost faith in a Commander-in-Chief that even conservatives are now abandoning. People on all sides are looking for an answer they know the current leadership can’t provide.

The simple answer proposed by many on the left is to bring the troops home. This may happen anyway if the Iraq erupts in civil war. At a recent Senate hearing, Donald Rumsfeld clarified that it would be Iraq’s problem, and not America’s, to fight in the event of civil war. And without American support, it would take a miracle for the currently formed government to stay in power. In the all but inevitable power vacuum, it is likely that a religious autocrat would take power, which would allow the Kurds to form an autonomous state. This would greatly expand the power of Iran, which is already a threat to world peace and hoping to develop nuclear weapons. Their growing power would also threaten Saudi Arabia and Israel, our chief allies in the region. And the growing instability would facilitate terrorism far more than Saddam Hussein ever did.

Those who were originally in favor of an invasion did so to stop terrorists from getting WMDs (Ironically, it is Iran that is now trying to get WMDs). Many on the right say that America has already done its job, and it’s not our fault if Iraq collapses into civil war. This is a direct contradiction to Colin Powell’s famous ‘Pottery Barn’ statement about Iraq. It seems that we may abandon the cause of putting Iraq back together again after smashing it to pieces.

What is America to do? We are stuck between a rock and a hard place, forced to choose between the death of our own soldiers and the continuing death of people we tried to save. And although we may still be forced to make this terrible decision, there is still something we must do.

Imagine, for a moment, that we lived in a country with the political and moral strength to recognize our mistakes. Imagine that we did this in an effort to show real leadership and humility, as part of a true world community. Imagine that we, as a nation, apologized to the people of the world, and the citizens of Iraq, for this disaster that was unequivocally our fault. We need to apologize for not finding weapons of mass destruction, apologize for ignoring the advice of the rest of the world, and apologize for an imperial hubris that made a desperate situation even worse. We need to admit that we were wrong, and that we are sorry. We need to promise to the world that even though we are the most powerful nation in the world, we will never again undertake a war on such thin premises, or without listening to the legitimate concerns of so many. We need to apologize humbly, with grace and sincerity.

There will always be foreign policy challenges that require our leadership-—leadership that the world still needs. For all our faults, we remain the world’s only superpower, and we will need the assistance, advice, and trust of the world if we are to continue to exercise this power. We need to work with the rest of the world, and become a partner rather than a superpower. We need to calm the hatred for our country that has grown since the Iraq invasion, because we will need help meeting the potential conflicts of the future. If we choose to end this sad chapter in our history, we need to learn from our mistake.
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The drinking age in our country is nothing less than one of society’s greatest gifts to its youth. Sure, there may be legitimate reasons as to why 21 is the country’s legal drinking age—perhaps even studies that back up said reasons. But my argument is simpler than that.

Without such a high drinking age our youth would give up their lust for rowdy adventure much earlier. To prove this I ask you to imagine a youth, any youth, who begins partying in high school. Perhaps he goes out once a week to a house party or a beach party for lack of any other options. At first the drinking, new friends and make-out sessions are exciting. Every thing is new and adventure seems to wait around every corner. But eventually the drinking games, hiding from his parents and dodging the cops become routine and participating in the average inebriated high school conversation loses its electrifying appeal. After four years of these repetitive festivities, the high school drinking scene gets a bit uninspiring, to say the least, and it is not long before this youth knows every single person in town that ever shows up at a party. Staying home with the family or going to a movie begins to be serious competitors for a Saturday night out.

Luckily for the young individual it is at about this lackluster time that he heads off to college. There, he or she once again experiences the excitement of a night out with friends and Captain Morgan. As house parties become dorm parties and make out sessions become threesomes, the thrill of youth has returns in full force. But once again it only takes a few years before strange faces become familiar and each forty is uncannily similar to the last.

There are two options to compensate for such predictability: either push partying to the limit so that remembering what happened the night before becomes a game in memory or give up such wicked ways for the delights of reading the entire Harry Potter series in a weekend. It is when our young friend is on the brink of two equally dissatisfying pathways that he turns 21. Opened before him are the gates to an entirely new way of fulfilling the desire for excitement and interaction.

Within this birthday lies an endless supply of new places and faces to discover, formerly forbidden shows to attend and a feeling of legitimacy to enjoy. In short, just as youthful exhilaration is beginning to ware thin or take on unfriendly consequences, our society offers the gift of the 21st birthday. This is not to say that bars, clubs and shows will not eventually take on their own mundane and predictable nature, but surely it will happen much later than if the drinking age was set below 21. While a 20 year old in Canada may feel practically through with the bar and club scene having participated for three years already, American youths still have many new experiences to look forward to.

In my case, I have danced on house-party tables, on frat house tables, on beach logs, and on the street. But I’ll have to wait until I’m 21 to dance on a bar table.

Without such a high drinking age our youth would give up their lust for rowdy adventure much earlier. To prove this I ask you to imagine a youth, any youth, who begins partying in high school. Perhaps he goes out once a week to a house party or a beach party for lack of any other options. At first the drinking, new friends and make-out sessions are exciting. Every thing is new and adventure seems to wait around every corner. But eventually the drinking games, hiding from his parents and dodging the cops become routine and participating in the average inebriated high school conversation loses its electrifying appeal. After four years of these repetitive festivities, the high school drinking scene gets a bit uninspiring, to say the least, and it is not long before this youth knows every single person in town that ever shows up at a party. Staying home with the family or going to a movie begins to be serious competitors for a Saturday night out.

Luckily for the young individual it is at about this lackluster time that he heads off to college. There, he or she once again experiences the excitement of a night out with friends and Captain Morgan. As house parties become dorm parties and make out sessions become threesomes, the thrill of youth has returns in full force. But once again it only takes a few years before strange faces become familiar and each forty is uncannily similar to the last.

There are two options to compensate for such predictability: either push partying to the limit so that remembering what happened the night before becomes a game in memory or give up such wicked ways for the delights of reading the entire Harry Potter series in a weekend. It is when our young friend is on the brink of two equally dissatisfying pathways that he turns 21. Opened before him are the gates to an entirely new way of fulfilling the desire for excitement and interaction.

Within this birthday lies an endless supply of new places and faces to discover, formerly forbidden shows to attend and a feeling of legitimacy to enjoy. In short, just as youthful exhilaration is beginning to ware thin or take on unfriendly consequences, our society offers the gift of the 21st birthday. This is not to say that bars, clubs and shows will not eventually take on their own mundane and predictable nature, but surely it will happen much later than if the drinking age was set below 21. While a 20 year old in Canada may feel practically through with the bar and club scene having participated for three years already, American youths still have many new experiences to look forward to.

In my case, I have danced on house-party tables, on frat house tables, on beach logs, and on the street. But I’ll have to wait until I’m 21 to dance on a bar table.
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by Jeffrey Hayes and Allison Weis

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Solomon Amendment did not impugn on universities’ right to criticize the military’s policy toward gays. Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “the Solomon Amendment regulates conduct, not speech. It affects what law schools must do – afford equal access to military recruiters – not what they may or may not say.”

Despite this setback for the plaintiffs, Clark C. Monk, the executive director of the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, a group of nearly three dozen law schools, said in an interview that the group would continue to organize forums that analyzed and challenged the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

This issue does not affect Lewis & Clark nearly as much as the law schools for two reasons: First, there is not a strong military recruitment presence on our campus; secondly, LC is a private school and therefore federal funding is not as critical for us as it is for public universities. However, in an effort to protect people across the nation from discrimination based on sexual orientation, students at LC need to be concerned.

By upholding the Solomon Amendment, the Supreme Court did not close the book on debating the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. There is currently a bill in Congress to lift the ban on gays serving in the Armed Forces. It is imperative that we continue to challenge this policy, and for more reasons than are obvious.

In addition to being discriminatory against those of different sexual orientations, this policy, by barring openly gay men and women from joining the armed forces, limits the number of troops available. In a time when the army is loosening its requirements in physical fitness and academic aptitude for joining, it doesn’t make sense to bar qualified applicants because of their sexual orientation.

Ultimately, we would rather have a qualified soldier who happens to be gay fighting for our country than a physically and intellectually unqualified soldier who happens to be straight.
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by Nora Germano

In 2001, 1.31 million abortions were performed in the U.S. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, about 681,200 (52%) of those abortions were performed on women under 25 years of age.

As a woman who considers herself pro-life, I was reluctant to attend the Gender Studies Symposium’s roundtable discussion “Perspectives on Abortion and Pro-Choice Activism” last Thursday. But in the interest of challenging my ideals, gaining perspective, and listening to the other side, I went. There I learned more about my position and how it relates to the abortion debate.

First, let me address the pro-life side. Abortion is not the only right pro-choice activists fight in favor of. Pro-choice activists also advocate the availability of birth control, emergency contraception, and adequate sex education, which are all necessary to decrease the amount of abortions women get each year.

Some pro-life advocates believe women should not be on the pill and that abstinence education should be the only lesson taught in a sex education setting. But the ultimate issue is preventing the killing of fetuses. If more comprehensive sex education and better availability of birth control can prevent unwanted pregnancies, and thus the need for abortion, it should be supported.

Now let me address the pro-choice side. Pro-life does not mean anti-choice. Choose any kind of reliable birth control you want—condoms, the pill, or abstinence.

But pro-life advocates believe choice stops when a life is formed. Then, it’s not just about one woman’s life and one woman’s health; it’s also about a child’s life and a child’s health. I’ll admit that sometimes women are denied the choice of birth control.

In cases of rape or incest, when a woman was denied choice, let’s fight to make emergency contraception readily available so these women do not need to have an abortion. Emergency contraception is not abortion because it prevents pregnancy. And by the way, in a major study of pregnant rape victims, Dr. Sandra Mahkorn found that 75% to 85% of rape victims choose not to have an abortion.

Let me clarify for both sides: sex is a big deal and lives are at stake. A choice can change a life and it can create a life. The point is to be careful and think about the consequences before having sex.

The reality is that most women make the decision to have an abortion for reasons that could have been foreseen like wanting to postpone childbearing or not being able to financially support a child. Only 3.3% of women have an abortion due to a risk to fetal health, and only 2.8% of women have an abortion due to a risk to maternal health.

If we can educate women about sex and how to do it safely, if we increase the availability of birth control and emergency contraception, and if we can all practice safer sex when and if we choose to have it, maybe we can eliminate the need for abortion as a form of birth control.

I hope for the day when both sides can agree on a solution.
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