Daily Corinthian • Thursday, November 20, 2014 • 7
Universities plan 3.2 percent price increase BY JEFF AMY Associated Press
JACKSON — In-state tuition at eight public universities is likely to increase by an average of 3.2 percent this fall, if the College Board approves plans Thursday for the Mississippi University for Women to raise prices. The board voted on a two-year tuition plan last year, and most universities aren’t making changes now. Thursday’s action is preliminary, and the board must vote again later. Mississippi residents would pay a statewide
average of $6,718 for two semesters of full-time tuition and fees, up by $272. Delta State University and Mississippi Valley State University would keep tuition flat for the third year. The other six universities would increase charges from 2.5 percent to 5 percent. MUW had originally planned to keep prices flat next fall, but now wants to raise tuition and fees by 2.5 percent to $5,781 a year. The largest increases would come at the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State, which
would both raise tuition and fees 5 percent to nearly $7,500 a year. Alcorn State is seeking approval to become the third university to waive out-of-state charges for all students, along with Delta State and Valley. Alcorn estimates that it would forfeit about $1.5 million in out-of-state charges in the first year of the policy, saying it already waives the charges for many of its more than 450 nonresident students. Alcorn said it would have to enroll about 170 more students to make up for the lost revenue.
Many students don’t pay the sticker price, thanks to federal, state and college-based aid. In 2010-2011, Mississippi university students typically got $6,400 worth of aid, Southern Regional Education Board figures show. That covered about one-third of the total cost of attendance, once room, board, books and transportation were factored in. Still, increasing college costs are far outstripping stagnant family incomes. In-state tuition will rise 66 percent from fall 2005 to fall 2015, while house-
hold incomes have been basically flat in Mississippi. It now takes about 17 percent of the typical Mississippi family’s income to pay for one year of college at a state university, not counting room, board or other costs. As costs outstrip family incomes, more students are borrowing to pay for school. More than half of students at the state’s eight public universities had federally financed student debt in 2011, with the average student borrowing almost $6,700. The numbers are higher at some schools. Federal
figures show 90 percent of Mississippi Valley State undergraduates had loans in 2011. Universities say they need more money to increase faculty salaries, cover operation costs and make up for cuts to state aid. Though appropriations to the university system rose by almost $40 million this year, it still remains more than $55 million short of the $782 million that it received in state money in the 2008 budget year. On a perstudent basis, aid shrank even more during the economic downturn.
Buffalo residents bracing NBC scraps Cosby TV project for another snow storm BY DAVID BAUDER Associated Press
BY CAROLYN THOMPSON Associated Press
BUFFALO, N.Y. — A ferocious lake-effect storm left the Buffalo area buried under 6 feet of snow by Wednesday, trapping people on highways and in homes, and another storm expected to drop 2 to 3 feet more was on its way. Even hardened Buffalo residents were caught off guard by the early-season storm that was expected to end by Wednesday afternoon. The storm came in so fast and furious it trapped more than 100 vehicles on a 132-mile stretch of the state Thruway in western New York that remained closed Wednesday. Snow plunged off one family’s roof with such force that it blew in the back door, filling a room with snow. “It was a huge crash. We all started running back there. We actually thought that it was the roof coming down in the house,” said Chrissy Gritzke Hazard, who was home with her husband, five children and three of her children’s friends Tuesday. “We were definitely not expecting it to be the doors blown out, the frame, everything, inside the house.” The snowstorm shifted slightly into Buffalo’s northern suburbs Wednesday morning, giving the hardest hits areas a bit of a reprieve, but forecasters said a second round of lake-effect snow could deliver an additional 2 feet or more into Thursday. Cold weather enveloped the entire country Tuesday, leading to record-low temperatures more familiar to January than November. Racing winds and icy roads caused accidents, school closings and delays in municipal operations from the Midwest to the South even where snowfall was low or mercifully absent. The storm was blamed for five
western New York deaths, three of them heart attacks. Erie County officials said a 46-year-old man was discovered early Wednesday in his car, which was in a ditch and buried in snow in the town of Alden, 24 miles east of Buffalo. It was unclear how he died. Two other deaths were reported in New Hampshire and Michigan. “We have tried to get out of our house, and we are lucky to be able to shovel so we can open the door,” said Linda Oakley of Buffalo. “We’re just thinking that in case of an emergency we can at least get out the door. We can’t go any further.” Members of the Niagara University’s women’s basketball team were among those trapped on the Thruway. Stranded since 1 a.m. Tuesday, team members tweeted photos of a plow starting to clear the road. State troopers picked them up early Wednesday morning and brought them to a nearby police station where another bus was waiting to take them back to campus, Niagara guard Tiffany Corselli said. “It seemed like a nightmare. It just didn’t feel like it was going to end,” Bryce Foreback, 23, of Shicora, Pennsylvania, told The Associated Press by cellphone 20 hours into his wait for help. “I haven’t slept in like 30 hours and I’m just waiting to get out of here.” Foreback had become stuck in a long line of cars near the Lackawanna toll booths just south of Buffalo about 10:30 Monday night. Officials with the Thruway Authority and state police did not provide information on how many people were stranded Wednesday. The lake-effect snow created a stark divide: In downtown Buffalo and north of the city, there was a mere dusting of precipitation, while in the south parts, snow was everywhere.
NEW YORK — NBC says it has scrapped a Bill Cosby comedy that was under development, the second outlet within a day to put off or abandon a Cosby project after another sexual assault allegation against the comic emerged. NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks said Wednesday the project “is no longer under development,” and had no further comment. Netflix announced late Tuesday that it was postponing the Nov. 27 premiere of a new Cosby standup comedy special, giving no hint about whether it will ever be aired. Hours earlier in an interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” actress Janice Dickinson became the third woman in recent weeks to allege she’d been assaulted by Cosby — charges strongly denied by the comedian’s lawyer. Dickinson told “Entertainment Tonight” that Cosby had given her red wine and a pill when they were together in a Lake Tahoe, California, hotel room in 1982. When she woke up the next morning, “I wasn’t wearing my pajamas and I remembered before I passed out I had been sexually assaulted by this man.” Cosby’s lawyer, Martin Singer, said in a letter to The Associated Press that Dickinson’s charges were “false and outlandish” and were contradicted by Dickinson herself in a published autobiography. Cosby’s spokesman, David Brokaw, has not returned calls for comment. The spiraling scandal has threatened the 77-year-old comedian’s reputation as America’s TV dad at a time when he was launching a
comeback. He has at least 35 performances scheduled throughout the U.S. and Canada through May of 2015. None of the performances has been cancelled. At one of the venues, the Sandusky State Theater in Sandusky, Ohio, there’s been no negative feedback, said David L. Taylor, the site’s executive director. There’s been one query from the community about whether the scheduled Jan. 30 performance is still on. “If the show were to cancel, everybody would obviously get full refunds,” Taylor said. Additionally, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art has not changed its plans for an exhibition featuring Cosby’s AfricanAmerican art collection alongside African artworks. The show opened this month on the National Mall and is scheduled to remain on view through early 2016. “The exhibition has been very well received. We’ve actually had record numbers through the door,” spokesman Eddie Burke said, adding the museum has had no complaints. NBC’s project, announced in January, was in the very early stages, without a script or commitment to production. But it would have brought Cosby back to the network where he had reigned in the 1980s with the top-rated “The Cosby Show.” There’s some precedent for a network burying a project because of stories involving a star’s personal life. NBC shelved a two-hour TV movie, “Frogmen,” starring O.J. Simpson in 1994 after the former football star was implicated in his wife’s
death. Dickinson said she had met Cosby before Lake Tahoe when her agent had introduced them, hoping that she could get a job on “The Cosby Show.” The actress said she came to the resort where Cosby was performing at his urging after he said that he would help her with her singing career. She said she had never confronted Cosby about the incident. Her spokesman did not return messages from the AP on Wednesday. “I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do and this happened to me and this is a true story,” she said. Yet Dickinson had told a different story in her 2002 autobiography, “No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental life of the World’s First Supermodel.” In the book, Dickinson described stopping at his hotel room door when he invited her in after dinner. After she declined, Dickinson said Cosby told her, “After all I’ve done for you, this is what I get?” and slammed the door in her face. She told “Entertainment Tonight” that Cosby and his lawyers pressured her and the publishers not to tell the real story. Singer said the publisher sent the pages in Dickinson’s book about Cosby to Cosby’s publicist prior to publication. “There was no mention of rape or sexual assault whatsoever,” Singer said. “Nobody tried to kill any sexual assault or rape story.” Cosby, who was never criminally charged in any case, settled a civil suit in 2006 with another woman over an alleged incident two years before.
The Corinth Symphony Orchestra Presents
Sunday, November 30th, 2014 Corinth Coliseum Civic Center 2:30 p.m. Come Home for the Holidays and enjoy a beautiful afternoon to kick off your Christmas season. Expect some surprises and sit back and enjoy the sounds of the season featuring the talented Corinth Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Maurice Weatherall.
Tickets will be available at the following locations: Pizza Grocery, The Corinth Alliance, The Corinth Tourism Office – Cash or checkss accepted. Admission: $15 Advance tickets; $20 at the door Active military FREE with valid ID