The Price of a Quality Education

Harvard University

In America today, a college education has a continually growing importance and a continually growing price tag. Many argue that a degree from the Ivy League schools is becoming virtually impossible for most of America to afford and prosper at.

Just this week, I saw that Harvard University, one of the top schools in a country, is offering a free, extension program online. While the courses, such as Computer Science, Shakespeare and the World Wars, cannot be taken for credit towards a degree, they can regardless be taken. As part of the school's "learning initiative", they want to encourage education all over the country.

I think this sounds like a nice opportunity for those who cannot afford any type of education otherwise. The school also offers evening and online courses for a less expensive price tag for a Bachelor's degree. What do you think? To what extent do you think this program is worth the time of the faculty and its participants even though its not for credit?

Petraeus Scandal: Civil Liberties Under Fire

David Petraeus

Whatever one may think about the recent scandal involving the former C.I.A. director and four-star general, David Petraeus, the most important item to pull out of it is the fact that in attempt to find out more incriminating evidence, the government has violated his civil liberties.

Upon reading an article from The New York Times, I learned that the C.I.A. has violated his personal privacy by going through personal information such as emails and online photographs in an action called 'cyber-stalking'. According to Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union,“This is a textbook example of the blurring of lines between the private and the public.” I agree with Romero: what began as a personal matter between two women and one married man, has become a high-trafficked issue appropriate for the tabloids, and certainly not one to be performed by such a high ranking official. Constitutionly, Petraeus has the right to his own privacy and intimacy. But, the fact that he is who he is in the Central Intelligence Agency and the women who has he has had an affair with, Paula Broadwell, also had high power with her security clearance as his biographer, they are in fact putting themselves out in the open in the public.

I find this issue between the C.I.A. and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) to be fascinating. To what extent do you think that government officials should be subject to the fine line of public and private accounts? How has this been viewed and used in the past? 

The Public Transportation Debate

Whether it is getting to work, running errands or just getting around, people all over the United States are faced with the choice of transportation: personal or public? A lot of times, personal cars are the object of choice because of convenience and popularity. However, with the price of gas increasing due to pollution and depletion of fossil fuels, the public mode of transportation is becoming more mainstream. In the recent Presidential campaign, both major party candidates discussed how they hoped under their administration the United States would become energy-efficient, ie no longer at the mercy of foreign oil companies. With this in mind, I am surprised that there are not more accommodations and funding provided to increase usage of this communal mode, such as trains, subways and buses.

Growing up in Chicagoland, I have always been very used to using our local train system, the Metra. In today's Chicago Tribune, there was an article about the constant rising of train fares in Metra. According to Metra's new chairman, Brad O'Halloran, Metra will be introducing possible fare increases of up to 10 percent because "Metra customers would rather have regular, small increases that reflect rising costs, than large hikes". I am not sure I agree with this. Although regular, small increases due seem natural because of uncontrollable factors like inflation and usage, I do not think they occur at a steady state. In fact according to the same article, "Metra's Feb. 1 fare hike was the agency's biggest ever. The average increase for most regular riders was about 30 percent." This does not seem to be regular or consistent. In order to become more established and mainstream, Metra, along with other companies must find a middle ground when charging their customers.

I think the way people travel is a clear representation of what their society is really like. In fact, this trend of increasing fares inconsistently is not just in Chicago, but all over the country, including our nation's capital, Washington D.C. According to a Washington Post article, in June, "rail passengers faced average increases of about 5 percent." In reality, this is the third time in five years that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority had raised its fares. But what I really wonder is, if administrations want people to use public transportation, why don't they make it the fare structure more holistic and self-explanatory?