December 7, 2013 - December 13, 2013, The Afro-American
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OPINION
Opening the Doors to Our College and Universities “In America today, college is available to everyone prepared to move forward in life,” Dr. Claudio Prieto, then Assistant U.S. Education Secretary, once observed. “For minorities like us, there are still barriers to obtaining an education, but with hard work, those barriers are manageable....” Most of us would agree. Yet, for Americans of color, acknowledging that educational opportunity is now far greater than in Elijah Cummings our past is not the same as concluding that the very real barriers to a better life can be “managed” easily. Among the most difficult of our remaining challenges is finding ways to pay for the education that will transform our lives. As a society, our future prosperity and national security depend upon properly educating all Americans who are willing to learn. Helping those who are determined to improve themselves through higher education must rank among our foremost priorities. In this Information Age, it should surprise none of us that the average annual earnings for an individual with a college degree are 60 percent higher than are earnings for those whose education ended with high school. Yet, despite the clear benefits of obtaining a college education, far too many Americans are trapped outside the university gates, looking in. I am honored to serve on the Board of Regents of Morgan State University where we are doing all that we can to make a Morgan State education affordable. Yet, despite our best efforts, some students must leave school before obtaining their degrees because they no longer can afford the cost. In my work, both in Washington and here in the Baltimore region, these are tragedies that I am determined to eliminate.
The Congressional Research Service observes that the published annual costs for tuition, fees, room and board at public four-year institutions average roughly $17,000 for in-state students – and often twice that staggering amount at private not-for-profit four-year institutions. Few of us have the financial resources to pay, out-ofpocket, the staggering “sticker price” of a college education. As a result, college students typically must rely upon a combination of grants and student loans to balance the books. Fortunately, federal assistance, approved by the Congress under the Higher Education Act, is available to help college students pay their bills. Each school year, the U.S. Department of Education provides approximately $150 billion in grants and loans to more than 14 million college students. This help flows to nearly 60 percent of all the students who are studying to complete their undergraduate degrees. I strongly support this federal investment in the future of our people. For example, this year, I have authored and introduced H.R. 3446, the FAFSA Fairness Act of 2013, which would simplify and reform the complicated process for students to apply for federal student financial aid when they no longer have contact with their parents. Moreover, I have long understood that there are many other obstacles to prospective college students receiving the financial aid that they need and deserve. For too many, especially for those who are the first in their families to attend college, a prominent barrier is often lack of information. They do not realize all of the help that is available to help them afford their tuition, fees and other college costs. Many do not know how to go about applying and qualifying for this aid. This is the critically important information many students and parents have received in the free seminars that our congressional office has organized each year since I first entered the Congress. Please mark your calendars for the 17th Annual “How to Pay for College” seminar on Dec. 9 from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral Street in
It’s the current American reality that’s become a nightmare for millions upon millions whose lives, occupations and economic stability once seemed to embody it. A new survey released Thanksgiving week by the Washington Post and the Miller Center, a nonpartisan, public policy-focused affiliate of the University of Virginia, offers fresh Lee A. Daniels evidence that Americans overwhelmingly still hold fast to the positive beliefs that in the 20th century helped project the buoyant optimism of the American character. For example, 85 percent of Americans think that being able to attend college is at least a part of the American Dream; and 87 percent feel that way about home ownership. A nearly equal proportion – 86 percent – consider that doing better than their parents is part of the American Dream; and 61 percent claim that the idea of the American Dream is meaningful to them personally, while another 18 percent say it’s not meaningful to them but is to other people. However, the true importance of the survey, which has been conducted since the 1970s, is that it’s the latest document to plumb the impact of the economic crisis – the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009 – that’s pushed many Americans into desperate circumstances. In significant measure, that calamity has eroded not just to their financial resources but also their hopes about the
present and the future. More than 60 percent say they worry the economy’s unsettled condition will cause them to be laid off, the largest proportion of concern that question has ever produced. Nearly half, 48 percent, said they feel less financially secure than a few years ago; and 66 percent expect it’ll be harder for people like them “to get ahead” in coming years; while a total of 73 percent say they’re somewhat or very dissatisfied about the country’s economic situation. Only 39 percent believe their children will be able to better the family’s current standard of living; another 24 percent believe their children’s circumstances will roughly match theirs; but 28 percent believe their children will be economically worse off. Not surprisingly, lower-paid workers worry far more than those higher up the wage scale about losing their jobs or running out of money to pay their rent and other necessities before the end of the month. That truism has a greater importance now than usual because more than half of the jobs created since the Recession ended have been low-wage positions paying on average little more than $30,000 a year. The economic hardship faced by these workers – the working poor – and the millions of Americans at or below the poverty line has been underscored in recent months by a number of developments.
The American Dream Lives! But...
They include: • The one-day work stoppages by fast-food workers in dozens of cities across the country to dramatize their very low wages. • The increasing number of states and municipalities that are moving on their own to increase the minimum wage in their jurisdictions (more than 4 million workers are paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour). • New research showing the astonishing growth of income
Baltimore. Our free event will include one-stop shopping as representatives from 29 different community and state colleges, public and private universities and scholarship organizations work to inform students and their parents about post-secondary programs and financial aid programs. Then, during the one-hour program portion of our event, I will be joined by noted experts who will share their knowledge about federal and state financial aid benefits, private scholarships, SAT preparation, the college admissions process and the value of our community colleges. Participants will hear from experts provided by the U.S. Department of Education, the Maryland Higher Education Commission, the Central Scholarship, the College Board, Morgan State University and Howard Community College. As taxpayers, we are helping to fund the $150 billion in federal student aid that our government provides to students each year. We each must assure that every local student who needs this help takes the steps necessary to apply and qualify. For all of us, young and older alike, higher education is the door to opportunity. We need only to help each other open that door. Rep. Elijah Cummings represents Maryland’s Seventh Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives.
inequality in American society, New York City Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s proposal to increase the taxes on the city’s wealthiest resident in order to fund improvements in the public schools. A new poll shows the idea has drawn widespread support from residents – including conservative and wealthy residents – of both New York City and the state. The increasing attention being paid to the predicament of food stamp recipients, who face severe cutbacks in their monthly allotments on top of one they already suffered this month. And, lastly, there was Roman Catholic Pope Francis, in a lengthy official, and startling, document issued two days before Thanksgiving, sharply criticizing the “idolatry of money” and the conservative “trickle-down theories” of economics for having helped usher in a “globalization of indifference” to the plight of the poor. Those criticisms, embedded in the 200-plus page missive, were clearly a call for efforts to reduce the degree of income inequality in Europe and the United States as part of a broader campaign to make compassion a central part of nation’s and individuals’ approach to solving problems. These and other developments raise the question: Are we witnessing the development of a “critical mass” of individuals and institutions of diverse philosophical views, that’s ready to redress at least some of the causes of the dangerous increase of poverty and income inequality? Now, that would be a dream worth working for, in the United States and abroad. Lee A. Daniels is a longtime journalist based in New York City. His latest book is Last Chance: The Political Threat to Black America.
What Would Republicans Do on Healthcare?
Many ardent conservatives are critical of the Affordable Care Act or what they derisively call “Obamacare.” But what are they proposing that proves that they care about uninsured Americans? The Tampa Bay Times’ “Pundit Fact” team discovered some interesting findings when they approached that question indirectly. Specifically, the newspaper looked at the main Republican alternatives to the George E. Curry Affordable Care Act and the patient diagnosis under the GOP proposals was not encouraging. “Not all but most of the nine bills on our list use the tax code to put more money in citizens’ pockets on the condition that the money will be spent on health care,” the newspaper stated. “We found three basic approaches that potentially address insurance affordability.” It cited overhauling health care tax deductions, refundable tax credits and health Savings Accounts. On overhauling health care tax deductions, the newspaper said, “The most generous proposal comes from the conservative Republican Study Committee, which put forward a bill with 100 cosponsors that would give a $7,500 deduction to
individuals and a $20,000 deduction to families. “We saw two big catches here. You would need to have insurance in the first place. Plus, the bill would eliminate the biggest tax break households enjoy today, the portion of their premiums paid by their employer. Getting rid of that $170 billion tax benefit would be a tough sell and a dramatic change to employer-provided insurance.” As for the refundable tax credits, it was noted that they “are like tax deductions, with the big difference that you can claim the credit even if you don’t have taxable income. H.R. 2300 from Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) offers a maximum tax credit of $5,000 for families making up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $47,000 a year.” The paper said, “While the details are different, this resembles the program put forward by President George W. Bush. A 2005 study of the Bush plan by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, found that ‘lower-income individuals experience the largest declines in uninsurance rates’ under the Bush proposal. “However, of the 45 million people uninsured then, Bush’s $3,000 tax credit plan would have helped only about 2 million people who made less than 200 percent of federal poverty and just a bit over 3 million overall.” The third option – Health Savings Accounts – fared no better. The Tampa paper said, “Thomas Buchmueller, a health economist at the University of Michigan, said it is a major undertaking to provide insurance to those who lack the money to pay for it. “‘Tinkering with tax deductions and making health savings
accounts more attractive is not going to change that basic fact,’ Buchmueller said. ‘Roughly half of the Affordable Care Act coverage gains come from expanding Medicaid. I don’t see anything in these proposals that would do much for the people who will gain Medicaid under the ACA.’” Like so many issues, Democrats and Republicans differ in fundamental approaches. “One of the widest gaps between Democrats and Republicans is the basic understanding of what it means to offer a plan to people of limited means,” the Florida newspaper observed. After a terrible 2-month rollout, the Obama administration finally may be in a position to silence some of its legitimate critics. A report issued Dec.1 by the Health and Human Services Administration disclosed that the primary website, HealthCare.gov, has been successfully overhauled and is now able to support more than 800,000 consumer visits a day. “The new management system and instrumentation have helped improve site stability, lower the error rating below 1 percent, increase capacity to allow 50,000 concurrent users to simultaneously use the site and will help drive continuous improvement on the site,” the report stated. “While we strive to innovate and improve our outreach and systems for reaching consumers, we believe we have met the goal of having a system that will work smoothly for the vast majority of users.” George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service (NNPA.)