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_News__ Michigan students protest on-campus secret society by James Boozer College Press Exchange Ann Arbor, Mich. — Students at the University of Michigan are protesting a secret society on campus called “Michiga mua” that they say shouldn’t be using pub lic facilities to conduct private business. Each year, the all-male society, found ed in 1902, and its female cognate, the “Andara,” created in the ‘70s, invite 50 students to join. Both groups work to gether to foster friendships and serve the university community — but they large ly conduct their business in secret. _ Protesters, led by the university’s Stu ® dents of Color Coalition and backed by the university’s student government, don’t like that the society holds its meetings in the student union. Some students opposed to the society recently broke into its meeting place, took inventory of the room’s contents, many of which are secret, and publicized them. Protesters said they want the society’s meeting place converted into a cultural study lounge. Not everyone agrees with the pro testers’ tactics. “The SCC occupied Michigamua’s room, kept the members out and publi cized the items that had been special to the group for many generations,” Matt Nolan, a student government official, said during a recent meeting. “Michigamua’s right to privacy was violated. We shouldn’t endorse [the protesters].” But the majority of student-govern ment officials voted this week to bar the society from meeting in a building that is designed for all students. They have called for university offi cials to cut their ties with the society and have the group removed from the building. Michigamua members said getting rid of them won’t be easy. They point to records from a 1930 board of regents meet ing that granted space in the union to the society because the society paid for some renovations to the building. (SO MUCH FOR SAVING" V_MY NABI MONjg^ ^ 9 s f SURE BABY, YOU CAN HAVE HIM. J I_I f NABIBioMedical Center 215 Assembly St., Columbia SC 29201 254-2280 r~ Help children, lemophillacs, and heart patients who receive iroducts made from the olasma of our donors. m Excellence^^ in Teaching Awards 1999-2000 Recipients • Dr. Laura Ahearn Dr. Robert Angel Dr. Ronald Atkinson Dr. William O. 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More than 1,000 Duke University col lege students plan to plant themselves on the Beach’s Oceanfront in May for their annual end-of-the-year, post-finals party. The 18- to 21-year-olds are chang ing their party plans to give the boot to one of Virginia Beach’s top competitors — Myrtle Beach. The university’s NAACP chapter is challenging all students to avoid South Carolina’s shore and join with the na tional chapter’s efforts to boycott the state for refusing to remove the Con federate flag from its state Capitol. While the students are not the cus tomers that Virginia Beach usually tar gets — 25-to 44-year-olds with families and annual incomes of more than $45,000 — Beach leaders and hotel owners said they welcome the young people. They might not spend a lotand pump up the city’s tourism dollars. But they’re worth far more than the money they’ll contribute to the economy. They signi fy a different image than the one creat ed by events in 1989. A decade ago, Greekfest, a college party of more than 100,000 black stu dents at the beginning of the school year, turned into riots, arrests and claims of police brutality. The Labor Day weekend melee trig gered racial complaints and accusations that the city did not embrace black col lege students. The riots also tarnished the Beach’s reputation among college stu dents at many schools. “This is a positive sign,” said Oral Lambert, the Beach’s chief of operations, when asked about the Duke students. “This is an indication that Virginia Beach is not looked upon as being negative. That’s the image that many people want to stir up. This is quite a turnaround in my view.” Jimmy H. Capps, president of the Beach Hotel and Motel Association, said he’s thrilled about the business. “We’re not that busy in the middle of May, and we want to rent hotel rooms,” Capps said. Twenty-year-old Duke stu dent Kameron Matthews, who is lead ing the effort to bring the students to Vir ginia Beach, said she had never heard of Greekfest and is not concerned. All Duke students want is to tan on the beach and go to the clubs and bars. And for that, the Beach’s resort strip is ideal, Matthews said. About 13 of the university’s organi zations have agreed to abandon Myrtle ■ Beach. The travel time is roughly the same distance from Durham, N.C., to Myrtle Beach, she said. “It’s also got the same atmosphere,” Matthews said. Ash By Ward, president of the Myrtle Beach Chamber of Com merce, said (KRT)the strip has no record of the students ever coming. But of the scheduled 591 groups that planned to travel to Myrtle Beach this year, 26 have canceled. Ward estimates a loss of about $933,000, or nearly one-half of 1 per cent of the nearly $200 million a year that Myrtle Beach collects from the tourism market. “Duke University is a top-notch school,” said Beach hotel owner Robert Vakos. “I can’t image those kids being real hell-raiseis coming out of there. Are they going to jeopardize their lives by trying to do something stupid? I doubt it.” James Ricketts, director of the Beach’s Department of Convention and Visitor Development, said the city has also made an effort to leant how to deal with youth. Several city leaders attend ed a youth conference in Atlanta last year with officials from places like Myrtle Beach and Atlanta to talk about the be havior issue. “The Beach is open to anybody,” Ricketts said. “Our visitation is made up of a number of ethnic groups, single to married, to senior citizens to young folks.” Cnnaress tn slnm tuition increases o by Tony Pugh College Press Exchange Washington — Flush with money from smart investments, administrators at Williams College last month did the un thinkable — they froze the school’s annual tuition for the first time in more than 40 yean — albeit at $31,520. That was a rarity among prestigious private schools. Of ficials at the college in Williamstown, Mass., hope the price freeze will engender good will and attract more top-notch sons and daughters of money-conscious parents. But experts say that’s unlikely, mainly because of an atti tude prevalent among the wealthy, which holds that a school charging less than its competitors must not be as good. So the Harvards and Princetons of the world continue to hike tuition each year, with little adverse impact on their ability to at tract superior students. That so-called “luxury mentality” is just one of many fac tors that have driven tuition to unprecedented heights over the last 20 years, analysts say. This year the average combined cost of tuition and fees at public four- year institutions is $3,356; it is $15,380 at private ones. Average tuition for a full-time resident undergraduate stu dent rose 44 percent from 1990 to 19%, according to the Gen eral Accounting Office. In the same period, the cost of liv ing, as measured by the consumer price index, rose only 15.4 percent, and median household income rose a mere 13.8 percent. One result of skyrocketing tuition is that college has be come all but unaffordable for most low-income families and many middle-class ones, forcing both to borrow heavily, and often crushing students with debt for decades. No one is quite sure why education costs have grown so much faster than inflation. The National Commission on the Cost of Higher Educa tion essentially threw up its hands with its final report in 1998, noting that colleges and universities have made little effort to explain their finances. “As a result, there is no readily avail able information about college costs and prices — nor is there a common national reporting standard for either,” the com mission report said. But academia’s veil of secrecy may be lifting slowly un der growing pressure for accountability. The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee examined the trend of rising college costs at hearings Wednesday and Thursday. College administrators, professors and other edu cation experts acknowledged their failure to justify tuition hikes, and some recommended steps to take, but no one had a definitive answer on why college costs keep rising so fast. The colleges’ own bills are driven by expensive factors such as complying with regulations, recruiting faculty, acquiring technology and building facilities. All are partly to blame, said William Troutt, president of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., and chairman of the National Association of Indepen dent Colleges and Universities. Costs per student soared 57 percent at four-year public in stitutions front 1987 to 19%, and 69 percent at private schools, Troutt said. Most four-year institutions will continue to see annual in creases, “probably at rates averaging as much as one or two points over inflation,” said William Massey, a professor at Stan ford University and a prominent education consultant. Meanwhile, a uniform system for reporting an institution’s costs, prices and subsidies is being developed by the National Association of College and University Business Officers. A task force of experts has been working longer than a year to devise a standard disclosure format, said Gregory Fusco, the consultant heading the project. Many tuition-paying parents voice frustration and confu sion over a related phenomenon: Why, they wonder, does tu ition keep going up even as federal student financial aid tops S41 billion a year? “We appear to be pouring more money into the system only to have it mopped up by tuition increases,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. In 1980, about 55 percent of the feden*’ aid came in the form of grants; loans accounted for aboi* 42 percent. Today those figures have reversed, with loancdccounting for 58 per cent, and 40 percent in grants. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn, who requested the hear ings, wondered whether the increased federal aid combined with tax credits for tuition simply emboldens colleges to chaige more. Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby said that was “not like ly,” but .a recent report by the Council for Aid to Education, a nonprofit advocacy group, said the position Hoxby voices is “akin to aiguing that the ready availability of home mort gages has no impact on the price of housing. * Take a Test Drive and find out! Kaplan and Golden Key are sponsoring a practice test Saturday, Feb. 19, 9am BA building. $5 donation to Golden Key. You MUST call 1-800-KAPTEST to register. Or stop by our table this Tuesday,Wednesday or Thursday in front of Russell House from 11am-2pm.Call today! Or take it online from February 15-29 at kaptestdrive.com! (ITJWTfr kaptest.com I 'Tost names are registered trademarks ol their respective owners. 1