Sen. Jeremy Ring's Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program bill is unconstitutional, and it violates the equal protection clause of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
What a week. One new amendment and a few new city commissioners later, and we're still reeling from all the political madness. As we inch closer and closer to Super Tuesday, presidential candidates have been dropping like flies, and the remaining few are fighting for their lives.
It is only days away.
As a Ph.D. student in the College of Engineering, I can completely understand Sen. Jeremy Ring's stance on cultivating the student culture toward education, sciences and health care. Historically, there has always been a higher demand for teachers, health care employees and scientists in the United States to support the country's infrastructure.
While Sen. Jeremy Ring's proposal to push students into certain majors through fiscal incentives may look good on paper, his efforts are not likely to pan out as expected. Even if the bill were to pass, the truth is that science and engineering students have too many difficult classes to be propelled solely by the extra cash he has proposed.
The bold alert screeching from UF WebMail's login page for the past week is not only a caution to students against giving their e-mail password to anyone, it is also a bright-red warning that the university's e-mail system is broken and needs to be changed.
UF students may be wary of the Bright Futures bill, but incoming UF students should be furious.
I grew up wandering around the neighborhood with a notebook and a pencil in my hand. You couldn't tell the color of my grandma's refrigerator without lifting up a copy of something I wrote. I was writing complete stories before I knew what a division sign looked like.
Tina Briggs, UF alumna
I was glad to see the article in Monday's Alligator on UF's billion-dollar endowment. Since the '80s, students have had to deal with increasing debt as tuition rates continue to rise faster than inflation. With this rise in tuition comes the inflated salaries of school administrators and university endowments reaching into the billions.
In the latest effort to combat traffic congestion on campus, UF Transportation and Parking Services is considering a proposal to raise the decal price for motorcycles and scooters.
Sen. Jeremy Ring's proposal for the modification of Bright Futures falls far short of anything bright. A student majoring in biology with an SAT score barely above the national average and a mediocre GPA would be awarded more money than a philosophy major who scored a 1500 on the SATs and had straight A's. Not only is that absurd, but just imagine the implications of that sort of scholarship.
We are now almost a month into 2008, but I can't shake the feeling that we're stuck in 1984. Big Brother is watching us, listening to us and invading our personal privacy at an unprecedented and alarming rate-all in the name of national security.
As details of election problems popped up Tuesday, the Floridian tradition of complicating national elections was renewed. Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning said none of the voting problems reported to his office were anything more than "common, everyday election fare."
The proposed changes to the Bright Futures program are ridiculous. The change, along with the possibility of tuition increases and the likelihood of universities accepting fewer freshmen, would make college more difficult for many students.
Tuesday's Republican primary captured Florida's importance in deciding the next U.S. president. The Republican candidates all offered different ideas to lead the party and the nation into the 21st century.
Since Florida won't receive any delegates at the National Democratic Convention in August, some people have tried to claim Tuesday's election won't matter.
God bless the Alligator's Editorial Board.
State Senator Jeremy Ring may be a Democrat, but his proposed "economic development tool" is anything but democratic.
While I respect both Robert Agrusa and Thomas Hawkins Jr. in their impassioned effort to give younger people a representative with whom they can identify and general residents a stronger bridge across generations, I do not extend that respect to the Alligator Editorial Board.
Solutions by The State News
