Nov 21, 2013 (No. 12)

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UNEWS

ARTS

May the odds be ever in your favor

unewsonline.com

Soccer season ends in heartbreak

OPINION PAGE 10

SPORTS

The costs of college

PAGE 7

Thursday, November 21, 2013

A student voice of Saint Louis University since 1919

Haiyan relief Tinker Tour concert set comes to for Dec. 2 town By WOLF HOWARD News Editor

By JESSICA WINTER Associate News Editor

SLU’s Filipino Student Association will hold a benefit concert in the Center for Global Citizenship on Dec. 2. Proceeds from the performance will be donated to support relief efforts for those affected by typhoon Haiyan, which devastated the Philippine islands on Nov. 8. SLU’s office of international services and the Student Government Association will provide additional financial support, and the event will include performances from Bare Naked Statues, the Indian Student Association and the Interfaith Alliance, along with independent performances by members of the SLU and Washington University community. Various St. Louis community organizations have also offered support. According to Garvaundo Hamilton, SGA’s VP of International Affairs, half of the proceeds will go to Philippine Red Cross. The other donation recipient has not been confirmed at the time of publication. FSA is also accepting donations in front of Au Bon Pain, located on the first floor of the Busch Student Center, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day. The suggested donation is $5. Donations will also be accepted the day of the concert.

Extraordinary change can come from the most unexpected of sources –even from a shy, 13 year old girl. Mary Beth Tinker was an 8th grade student with a cause and a little bit of courage, and with that she changed the First Amendment rights for students and teachers nationwide. After using a political fashion statement to express her opposition to the Vietnam War, Tinker found herself facing the Supreme Court in an effort to stand up for her beliefs –and won. Saint Louis University hosted the honorable Tinker and First Amendment attorney Mike Hiestand on Wednesday evening as one of their last stops on a nationwide “Tinker Tour.” “I grew up in a time of great inequality, racial discrimination, war and a war economy,” stated Tinker. Having a childhood peppered with political movements and emotional happenings, the Vietnam War was yet another disheartening event influencing Tinker’s life. She and her siblings would come home from school and watch broadcasts of the war on television, seeing soldiers in body bags, homes in flames and terrified children. Tired of feeling helpless, they See “Tinker” on Page 3

DEBT FOR

$

$36,090

LIFE? As student loan debt rises above $1 trillion, what is a degree worth?

$6,120 1987

By TONY TRAINA Managing Editor

College pays. This much we’ve been told. College graduates earn $1 million more over their lifetime than those with a high school diploma. But how does a student foot the everincreasing bill? Tuition for the 2013-14 school year at Saint Louis University is $36,090, not to mention the nearly $10,000 it costs to live in Griesedieck Hall and the host of other costs including books and fees. In the United States, the average private, four-year institution’s tuition is $30,090. For the majority of students, financing this increasingly means taking out loans and accumulating debt. With SLU’s “sticker price” easily topping $47,000, loans often become a necessity. For Derrick Neuner, who graduated from SLU in 2013 with a Master’s in Athletic Training, it meant accumulating more than $100,000 in debt during

2013

his six years. “What I did not expect was the longevity of it all. I know it’s not true, but I almost felt like I had nothing. Going through that summer job search, I was wondering ‘what is the point of this, why did I rack up all this debt?’” Neuner said. After receiving a six-month grace period to begin payment on his student loans, Neuner made his first payment in November. Now an athletic trainer for a high school in Huntsville, Ala., Neuner makes about $29,000 a year before taxes. Neuner is far from alone. Sixty-three percent of SLU students graduated with debt in 2011, holding an average debt of $36,601. Nationally, student loan debt has increased from $260 billion in 2004 to just over $1 trillion now. Another 2013 graduate, Mike Hogan, was able to graduate from SLU with considerably less debt. “I’ve been very fortunate. I recognize that…I worked hard in college and I was able to leverage my SLU education to

Corwin addresses the ‘wild side’

get into a great graduate school where I have incurred a ton of debt,” Hogan said, who is now in his first year at Yale Law School. “There are definitely concerns about the overall debt level, but there are also some things being taken out of context... we have very little flexibility to decrease what a student decides to borrow,” Cari Wickliffe, SLU’s Assistant Vice President and Director of Financial Services, said. “Not all families have been able to save for college, but we still want to provide that education…sometimes that means borrowing.” Neuner was one of these students. “I knew what going to SLU would mean, financially. I knew neither of my parents had the financial flexibility to help much,” he said. SLU’s tuition has increased by 63 percent the last ten years, from $22,050 See “Debt” on Page 3

Growing ethnic student group seeks charter

By WOLF HOWARD News Editor

SLU’s campus got in touch with its wild side on Monday when Jeff Corwin gave a talk titled “Tales from the Field,” hosted by the Great Issues Committee. Corwin’s talk centered on sharing his fascination with animals and the way human actions have affected their lives and environments. “The moment it looked at me, I reached out and grabbed on to it… and it reached out and grabbed on to me,” Corwin, the environmental journalist and Animal Planet celebrity, said of his first encounter with a snake. He was exploring in his grandparents’ backyard, and from that moment he knew he would spend his life with animals. The same snake was also the reason he became a conservationist: when he saw a neighbor slice the snake in two with a spade after Corwin had been watching it for years, he realized that “sometimes good people make bad decisions because they lack information.” Over the course of the night, the animal lover brought five different amphibian and reptilian costars on stage, along with many eager volunteers, and with each gave an aside as to how humans had affected similar creatures. Corwin

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now feels the need for their voices to be heard again. Garvaundo Hamilton, the Vice President of International Affairs, and Doerin With over 150 student Villafranco, a senator and organizations at Saint Louis one of the head members University, from Campus of this potential group, are Kitchen to the Korean Stuteaming up to ensure this dent Association, it appears group returns to campus as though every area of instronger than ever. The orterest is covered. However, ganization, called Caribbean as student populations flucand Latin American Student tuate so does the need for Association particular (CALSA), organizawould aptions and There are a multitude peal to a student replarge and inresentation. of cultures, ethnicities credibly diOne potenand languages that verse poputial student are encompassed lation. organization within the group “By the is attemptsheer nature ing to renew -Garvaundo Hamilton, of the region, their status VP of International Affairs there are a as a Charmultitude tered Stuof cultures, dent Orgaethnicities and languages nization (CSO). The group, that are encompassed within originally known as Latin the group,” stated Hamilton. American and Caribbean With such a large variety of Club, was present on SLU’s cultures within the region, campus years ago. However, Villafranco and Hamilton the organization fell apart want to ensure every person due to a decrease in enrollis represented on SLU’s camment from the region and pus. a lack of interest from new The diverse representastudents. Now, a recent intion would provide SLU with crease in enrollment from a very unique student the region has reawakened organization. “The group an interest in the organization and the population of Latin American and Caribbean students, which has See “CALSA” on Page 3 grown to over 60 students, By JACKIE STACHIW Staff Writer

Wolf Howard / News Editor

Swamped: Audience members hold an american alligator during Jeff Corwin’s talk. reassured anyone worried about dangerous animals at the beginning of his talk. “If something does happen, I’m very well insured,” he said with a smile. One guest was an alligator snapping turtle, the largest freshwater turtle in North America. Corwin said that the precise lifespan of alligator snapping turtles isn’t known, and that there are records of people finding flint and musket balls underneath layers of their shells. The turtle is lucky if their offspring grow to become an adult in every five or six years of nesting, and it

can take an ecosystem nearly 100 years to replace an adult, which makes it even more difficult for the species to survive if human actions are harming their environment. The turtle he showed to the audience was found and rescued in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. “In all of that morose appearance and its garish mug I see something worth protecting,” Corwin said, expressing his love of all things nature. The beast that followed required five volunteers to handle. “I’ve never seen more

people excited to go to the emergency room,” Corwin said as he picked out participants from a sea of waving hands. Once the five volunteers were lined up, Corwin’s assistant carried an American alligator to the stage and placed it along their outstretched hands. “To me [alligators] are a great example of perfect design,” he said, noting that alligators have existed on the planet essentially unSee “Corwin” on Page 3

Vol. XCIII No. 12

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