College Money Makers

I'm not sure why it took until my third child for me to realize the money making schemes that colleges have going on. I'm not talking about the outrageous tuition either. That's another story.
Colleges make money on people who will never attend there. Some of whom will not even get accepted.
Maybe I'm just realizing it because my other kids focused on small colleges. When they applied to college, they usually had fees waived to apply.
Big public schools though don't waive fees. To apply at Ohio State University costs $60. Last year, about 12,000 students applied to attend, which would bring in around $720,000 just in application fees. Of those 12,000, 7,186 new freshman began attending OSU. I don't know how many of them were not accepted and how many of them chose to go to college somewhere else.
One college that Tucker has been thinking about this year is the University of Miami in Florida. Its communications school has a good reputation, so we planned to let him apply there. Then I looked at the information about the average freshman attending U of Miami. The average, average GPA (grade point of average) of incoming freshman was 4.2. Now 4.0 is a perfect GPA. That means the student received straight As throughout high school.  Yet for U of M, the average was 4.2 which means half the students had higher GPAs than that. (Okay, my math skills aren't great but it must be a number of students with higher GPAs).

U of M was giving Tucker a pretty hard press to apply and when I saw the average GPA, I pointed out that he did not have a GPA nearly high enough to get into the school. The application fee was $70. So the schools work very hard sending out letters, emails, making phone calls to get students to apply even when they can never be accepted into the school.
Then I looked at the U of M statistics and they will receive 28,900 applications. At 70 bucks per student, that's over $2 million in application fees. Only 2000 students will be accepted.

So that's when I began to realize that college applications are a scam too.
One friend told me that her son decided to apply at colleges that don't have an application fee then to go visit the places where he was accepted.
Tucker wants to attend a large college though, so I suppose there isn't a way to avoid paying fees. I am trying to limit the fees to schools I think might be a good fit.

Time to Yell "Yopp!" on Health Care

This morning, a little later than I should have, I sent emails to the two senators and one representative who speak for me in Washington, D.C. I'm not sure why I waited so long, but I've had some time to let the ideas percolate.
I think health care in the U.S. definitely needs fixing. We pay about $64 a week for insurance through my husband's work. I know that isn't much compared to people who have to get their own insurance. But we also have about $4000 taken out every year and put into a medical savings account. Total, we pay about $7300 and we usually run out of that money in our medical savings account so we end up paying more. It just depends how many bones our children break, who needs braces, and who has physical therapy. And we're a healthy family. We have no chronic illnesses.
I hate watching the party that is currently in control in the government (democrats) wimp out. It's like they get to Washington and can't remember the people they left behind. They're so intrigued by the big parties and worried about getting re-elected, they become hypnotized by big business.
So, here's the message I sent:
"I am for a public option. Healthcare needs to be turned around for everyone. We have good healthcare through my husband's job but we still end up paying an exorbitant amount. Please think about the people you are representing and stand up for them rather than the insurance companies.
Think about how companies in other countries with socialized medicine benefit from not having to pay healthcare for their workers.If we had something similar, this could help boost our economy as well.
We have traveled in Europe and seen how well their healthcare is run. A trip to the emergency room with my son in Italy cost 75 euro. I laughed when they asked if we wanted them to bill our insurance.
We aren't scared of the word socialism. We have "socialist" roads and highways that everyone can use. We have "socialist" schools that everyone can attend equally. Don't be afraid of labels, just do the right thing for the people you represent."
I'm not sure if my message will make a difference, but I know I can't make a difference if I don't send it.
When I talk politics and health care with people, I usually reference a woman who is on a writer's email group with me. Someone posted a fund raiser for an American woman who had breast cancer. They were trying to raise money for her treatment.
Another woman on the list who was American but lives in Italy now, responded that she had survived breast cancer. She said that while she was sick, she was able to focus on getting better rather than raising funds, because the treatment was paid for in Italy. She said she couldn't imagine having the added stress of worrying about how to pay the bills and whether she might bankrupt her familiy.
That really struck me. How different would an illness be if the focus was on recovering rather than worrying about the payments?
Let's go, Americans. We need health care reform. Like the Dr. Seuss story Horton Hears A Who, it is time for all of us to gather together and yell, "YOPP!" so they hear us, they know that we are here. If you remember the story, Horton the elephant was trying to save a small speck of dust that had a whole world on it, but the other animals couldn't hear the people who lived on the speck of dust. They all needed to yell out to be heard. So, the mayor:
"just as he felt he was getting nowhere,
And almost about to give up in despair,
He suddenly burst through a door and that Mayor
Discovered one shirker! Quite hidden away
In the Fairfax Apartments (Apartment 12-J)
A very small, very small shirker named Jo-Jo
was standing, just standing, and bouncing a Yo-Yo!
Not making a sound! Not a yipp! Not a chirp!"
Don't be Jo-Jo! Don't be a shirker! Don't let health care fail because you refuse to yell louder than the right wing.
Push your representatives to pass health care with a public option. Now is the time.