May
12
Bulldozing grad parties
By Katie Kieffer
Image credit: flickr/mondopiccolo
College students who graduate this spring are about to enter a formidable job market. A lucky few, however, had access to an inspirational orator offering pep talks on poverty:
How to mix an Austeritini
Contrary to popular belief, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke does do more than drink Bernanktinis, as I’ve discussed before. This past weekend, he spoke at the commencement ceremony for the University of South Carolina. His speech included the following sage advice for young graduates, reported the Associated Press for MSNBC:
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Image credit: Toby Melville/Reuters.
“We all know that getting a better-paying job is one of the main reasons to go to college. But if you are ever tempted to go into a field or take a job only because the pay is high and for no other reason, be careful!”
“Having a larger income is exciting at first, but as you get used to your new standard of living and as you associate with other people in your new income bracket, the thrill quickly wears off.”
Is the Fed Chairman on a campaign to dismiss success and the American Dream as cheap thrills so that young Americans submissively “accept” the anti-free market policies coming out of Washington?
I may need dedicate a new drink to Bernanke. This time, I think I’ll call it the “Austeritini” in honor of the austerity Americans will have to embrace thanks to politicians and government officials who have played lead roles in devastating our economy.
The Austeritini will consist of plain, lukewarm (you can save money by passing on ice cubes and refrigeration) tap water served in a plastic martini glass purchased at a local dollar store. It will be the perfect compliment to graduation party platters – helping the grad and his or her friends “get used” to their “new standard of living:” A standard of living that is on-target to include the redistribution of wealth, unhealthy levels of unemployment and high inflation.
What Chairman Bernanke does not seem to understand is that many young people and their parents do understand the financial crisis and the role the Fed has played. Here is a response to Bernanke’s speech at the University of South Carolina from student leader Matt Kneece of Young Americans for Liberty:
Thanks for bulldozing the grad party, Chairman Bernanke. Now, we hope that you get back to work and take some steps toward preserving the value of our dollar and promoting a thriving free market system in America so that young college grads – brimming with potential – don’t have to get chided by the government for aspiring toward the American Dream.
Feb
22
Make a ‘Big Trade Up’
By Katie Kieffer
Katie & Amie's 'Big Trade Up.' Art copyright Amie Kieffer 2010.
There is always a better and more efficient way to do things, including donating to charity. During this recession, many non-profits are hurting. Government grants and private donations are beginning to dry up. But, local creative entrepreneurs and real estate professionals, Tony DelDotto of NorthMarq Real Estate and Chad Commers of Roseville Properties, have taken on the challenge of raising funds for charity in a down economy.
The concept is called the Big Trade Up. It raises money for Mind The Future scholarships that help inner-city students graduate from high school and move on to college. I want to promote the Big Trade Up’s goal for two reasons:
First, this is a non-profit venture that is overseen by two guys with a lot of business sense. Many non-profits fail to execute their mission, as BusinessWeek reports, because they spend more money than they bring in. Some executive directors and board members think their charity will survive on the mission alone, and consequently lose sight of financial management.
Whereas the Wise Giving Alliance recommends nonprofits limit fundraising expenses to 35 percent of their budget, some non-profits are literally going into debt to woo donors. The Big Trade Up is an efficient, low-cost idea to maximize revenue donated to charity and minimize the cost of attracting donors. This is because the Big Trade Up is spreading by word of mouth and viral online marketing – no costly postage, high-gloss pledge cards or rubber-chicken dinners needed.
Second, I applaud the Big Trade Up because it is an example of what the Cato Institute has shown: The private sector is better at solving social problems than the government. While our government is racking up debt to pay for social programs, the Big Trade Up is successfully raising funds for charity independently.
So, when Tony and Chad called and asked the Kieffer sisters to support the Big Trade Up, we were happy to help. My sister, Amie, painted a majestic, patriotic eagle soaring over a lake against a sunset and offered it up for their sixth trade.
Art packed up for delivery to the Big Trade Up. Copyright Amie Kieffer 2010
I would encourage you to participate in the Big Trade Up. It is a fun and effective way to help inner-city youth become high academic achievers. Tony and Chad have created a short video that explains the story behind the Big Trade Up. Please take a few minutes to check it out:
Jan
20
Winning Monopoly on Fun
By Katie Kieffer
If you’re sick and tired of paying back your college loans – or, your tuition payments – here’s a tip: Don’t expect to get a bailout from the government. It’s bankrupt already. The real way to get your bailout is to win the collegiate community’s little political game. I teamed up with Parker Brothers and we’re calling the game “Monopoly on Fun.”
I created this game out of selfish motives. Basically, I would like to start getting Christmas and birthday presents again. I’m tired of my friends excusing their penny-pinching and re-gifting on their high tuition payments or their massive college loans.
I finally threw up my hands and said to myself, “I know my friends have to choose between buying a $116,092 house or a four-year private degree. And, yes, I realize, college tuition increases by eight percent every year. But, I don’t care. I want my presents.”
In desperation, I picked up the phone and called Parker Brothers. I said, “Here’s the deal, PB. I’ve got a great concept for a new game that will help you rake in the lettuce.”
Parker Brothers: Katie, your last game concept was too dry for the game-board crowd. Most people don’t understand or care about monetary policy and you wanted to make a game out of it!
Katie: I promise, this game concept is different. It capitalizes on people’s natural desire to put cash in their pockets during this recession. Most people are in survival mode now. This game will make surviving fun.
Parker Brothers: Intriguing. We’ll give you 15 minutes to sell your idea. Take any longer and we’ll hang up, Ms. Conservative.
Katie: Ok, well, all my friends – mainly young professionals or current students – are miserly. I keep having to pick up the tab because they say they have to pay back their loans or make tuition payments. They think the answer is for the government to step in and bail them out.
Parker Brothers: That will be a cold day in hell. Have they checked out the national debt clock lately? Our government is in the red, red, red. How could it bail out college students and alumni now too?
Katie: Exactly. It can’t afford another massive bailout. What my peers don’t realize is that their high college tuition and loan payments are due to the collegiate community’s monopoly on fun.
Instead of budgeting wisely and only hiring the staff they need to educate students, most colleges create a frivolous and expensive layer of bureaucracy to control the college campus’ atmosphere. Essentially, students pay thousands of dollars for “controlled fun” in addition to paying for an education.
Parker Brothers: Hold on, Katie. College students are the biggest partiers on the planet. They know how to have fun on their own. How can you say colleges are dictating it for them?
Katie: Good question. Check out this organizational chart from my alma mater, the University of Saint Thomas. You’ll notice that the school has an entire arm of administrators dedicated to overseeing the social environment on campus:
- Director and Assistant Directors of Multicultural Student Services
- Director of Personal Counseling and Testing
- Associate Dean of Orientation/Commuter/Transfer/Student Services
- Assistant Dean of Parents’ Ombudsperson
- Many other positions supporting these main roles
These positions are all overseen by two additional costly placeholders:
- Dean of Students
- Vice President of Student Affairs
As Power Line blogger, Scott Johnson, exposed recently, I personally experienced the wrath and ineffectiveness of the University of Saint Thomas’ VP of Student Affairs, Jane Canney. She oversees a department that effectively closes down real discussion and debate on campus – for no apparent reason other than to advance her own political agenda on campus. She reports up to President Fr. Dennis Dease, paid roughly $300,000 a year to, as Power Line blog also exposed, oppose student-organized free speech and debate on campus.
The University of Saint Thomas President Fr. Dennis Dease and VP of Student Affairs, Jane Canney, talk to a student during campus move-in day. Image credit: St. Thomas' The Scroll blog.
Furthermore, the “net effect” of St. Thomas’ multicultural student services is evidence of how ineffective Canney’s department is at promoting a vibrant college community.
Presumably, students pay top dollar to attend a premier private institution like St. Thomas in order to expand their minds and earn a well-paying job. The multicultural program – far from opening up the eyes of students to the merits of diversity – hides them. Canney’s division ensures multicultural students have their own, segregated mission statement, meeting rooms, staff, resources, retreats, homecoming tent, and social activities. Rather than uniting students, these programs divide multicultural students from – “unicultural,” I guess, students – by corralling them into a distinct group.
Why should students have to pay for these unnecessary levels of bureaucracy? It’s their campus.
While some college presidents are taking decreases in their mega-salaries, or slightly smaller bonuses, the real cost of a college education comes from the multiple, unnecessary layers of management beneath the presidents.
What college students and alumni need to realize is that their complaints successfully pressured these presidents to accept more reasonable pay. Now, they need to collaborate together and pressure colleges to eliminate the needless monopoly they have on “fun.” Students – left to their own devices – will be able to relate to each other, regardless of race. Students do not need to pay for do-nothing administrative staffers to dictate what kind of public speakers can come to campus or to segregate them into groups based on race or culture.
Fr. Dease publicly apologized for Ann Coulter's appearance on campus – without attending her speech. Here, I escort Coulter into the auditorium at St. Thomas.
Here are the rules of the Monopoly on Fun game:
This is no board game. It’s played in real time and, no, you can’t choose your teammates. You can only choose your strategy.
Skills required:
Similar to the board game, negotiation and resource management are key skills.
You must build a network of alliances with other students, alumni, parents, media, community members, and “double-agent” administration members who support you.
You must then use this network to help you manage your own resources (your money) and limit the amount that you pay out to the University – which starts the game out with a monopoly on fun (i.e. the social environment on campus).
Equipment:
Your favorite technology device to communicate with your network of alliances – such as a cell phone or laptop. If, for some odd reason, you prefer to actually talk to people in person throughout the game – you will pay a small fee of time for your inefficiency.
Players:
One +
Random chance:
College environment, peers, college administration and number of layers of bureaucracy.
Goal: Purchase – or repossess – as much “fun” as possible, and end the University’s monopoly. Unlike the board game, you will actually rejoice if a fellow teammate – like a student or community member – successfully repossesses some of the University’s monopoly on the school’s social environment. The goal is to end the monopoly, but not create a new one. By reducing the University’s monopoly, you will:
- Reduce tuition costs by removing unnecessary layers of bureaucracy.
- Put more power in the hands of the student body to freely interact with each other and openly discuss important issues.
I want Parker Brothers to create this game because I think it will empower current students and alumni to speak up and petition colleges to reduce costs by cutting out needless deans, directors and administrators of “fun.” Students will create their own positive atmosphere on campus – for free. They should only have to pay for an education – not for a micromanaging, misguided mother hen.
Parker Brothers: Katie, you’ve sold us. This is a great concept. We’ll have our board-makers draft up a game for your review.
Katie: Monopoly!
Jan
18
Swindling beer money
By Katie Kieffer
Stealing beer money from college students can be like taking candy from a baby. Many keg-standing freshmen expertly hide their spare change from shady roommates, prying parents and parasitic friends, but helplessly hand over their weekend slush funds to the U Bandit.
Not every college has a U Bandit, but many do. I personally dodged the bullet, but only because I made a lucky bet. Here’s my story of escape and the tragedy of real victims:
First of all, what is the U Bandit? Essentially, it represents any college administration that builds its coffers by mandating frivolous, non-academic classes for graduation – often disguised as “Health and Fitness” tests or requirements.
The catch: College life is growing increasingly stressful. The suicide rate has tripled among young adults. College often separates a young person – immature in nearly all aspects – from everything and everyone he or she has grown up with. It brings new pressures from peers – in addition to rigorous academic requirements.
When people are stressed and living in an unrealistic bubble-world of peers who are young, immature, using daddy’s credit card and have nothing to do but gossip and drink in their spare time – don’t be surprised if one of two things happens:
- They binge drink and eat – blowing up to look like Violet the Blueberry-ball.
- They stop eating and become carrot-stick-chomping zombies padding around campus in size 0 skinny jeans and Ugg boots.
In both of these cases, students end up with eating disorders caused by the temporary stress of their environment. Even the hard-to-phase “nerds,” – who get an early start on homework on Friday afternoons while the “cool” kids pre-game – can feel overwhelmed by the stress of college. There is so much going on, and, in the midst of it all, students are expected to make one of the biggest decisions of life: What to become when they “grow up.”
Savvy colleges have learned to manipulate the fact that student populations suffer from temporary binging and starving by offering “Health and Fitness” requirements. These classes, like step aerobics and swimming, offer universities several potential benefits:
- Can be taught by student workers, paid under $10 per hour – often with federal funds – without the added headaches of benefits and tenure.
- Meanwhile, the university can make a profit on these classes by adding a discretionary amount to the “student fee” – the big dustpan that disparaging budget items are swept into.
- Are a great marketing tool for the University to appeal for federal aid from politicians on the health bandwagon.
- Are a great marketing tool for incoming freshmen and parents who are told they will get fun, “free” health classes.
- Typically do not provide college credit.
Many colleges, such as Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University – likely seeking the “benefits” I mention above – try to say college students with weight problems are abnormal. So, Lincoln threatened “obese” students with body-mass indexes of 30 or higher to take a fitness course in order to graduate. This requirement was met with loud disapproval from the student body, and was nixed.
One Lincoln student, Tiana Lawson, said: “I didn’t come to Lincoln to be told that my weight is not in an acceptable range. I came here to get an education which, as a three-time honor student, is something I have been doing quite well, despite the fact that I have a slightly high Body Mass Index.”
If there’s a normal time to gain weight – or lose it – in unhealthy amounts, it’s during college. “College” comes to mind when you hear: Freshman 15. Binge-drinking. Anorexercise. Frat party. Beer Pong. Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Thirsty Thursday. Tuesday Ice. None of these phrases indicate healthy habits, but they are all typical of college life.
If you are a smart college freshman, do what I did: Wait out unpopular hidden taxes. During freshman year, when my peers signed up – albeit grudgingly – to take the required zero-credit swimming test – I put it off. And I put it off. And I put it off.
My rational: Why did I have to waste my time proving I could, not only swim, but swim with an “accepted” stroke such as the butterfly? (I envisioned a worst-case scenario where I nervously screwed up the “accepted” stroke, and, was then required to take weeks of swimming lessons – even though I could swim.) More importantly, what did swimming have to do with getting a job or thinking analytically?
Why was the school so intent on making sure the student body could swim – wasn’t that “sportist” against biking, skiing, skating and water-skiing? Plus, Minnesota is never warm enough to even think about swimming during the school season – even with Al Gore’s man-made global warming pixie dust. And, The New York Times assures me that my apprehension toward college swimming requirements is common.
I figured if I drowned on spring break, it was my fault, not the school’s. So, I sat it out for three years.
Guess what happened? During those three years, enough students complained about the requirement that the University of Saint Thomas pulled it. My senior year arrived and I didn’t have to pass the swimming test. I think my roommates hated me.
If you don’t sit it out like I did, or protest like my peers and the students at Lincoln University did, legal action might be your only recourse when the U Bandit comes by. Keep your beer money (or your kid’s beer money) safe and say “no” to hidden taxes in the form of required health and fitness tests and classes on college campuses.
