State Funded Student Loans?

Got this article emailed to me through my UC San Diego Alumni email subscriptions...

University of California - UC Newsroom | State budget contains $115 million in new cuts for UC, stretches UC's total budget challenge to $450 million

Basically the UC system is going to have a huge operating deficit if they maintain current levels, they're going to have a $450 million shortfall of funding from the state. That's a mind boggling, huge amount of money, although I know the recent near-trillion-dollar stimulus has made us numb to the sheer size of these sums of money.

Basically, if the UC System wants to maintain current enrollment levels they'll have to raise tuition fees. My initial reaction to this is that students will be taking out larger student loans, which will be a direct transfer of money from the federal government to the UC system. Then, this debt will be bought by the various banks that are allowed to handle student loans (I'm thinking of the Stafford and Perkins Loans, since these are all I have experience with.)

Why not start issuing student loans at the state level? Is this done? In a way, this could help future revenue streams, as students will slowly pay them back with interest. Not that states need to become banks, but it's not like they aren't issuing bonds already, holding debt.

I'm not a credit expert so I don't claim to fully understand how it all works. But this might be worth considering.

The Male Pattern

I feel bad for my dad.  I've only known him as bald or balding.  When I was little, I used to be able to recognize him from behind by his bald spot.  Apparently his started in his late 20's, and by the time he was 50 he stopped grooming the top hair and started shaving his head.  

That's not the worst part.  I feel bad for him because the style in the 1970's was to have that bushy head of hair, like all us Generation X kids seem to like pushing on our boys now.  The Ricky Shroeder, Eight-is-Enough, Bobby Brady 1975 hair, where the sides grow into where the sideburns are and your bangs hang into your face, and the back is an inch shy of mullet.  Having that hair with the bald spot must have been a big bummer.  When my dad wore hats I used to imagine that he wasn't bald, I used to think about how much younger he'd have looked without the bald spot.  

Apparently, male pattern baldness comes to us on the X chromosome, or from our mother's side.   I used to take solace in this fact because my maternal grandfather died in his 70's with a nearly full head of hair, he had a pronounced widow's peak but the hair was still there.  So I used to smugly tease my dad about balding - knowing it was his kryptonite, not mine.  

But lately I don't joke about it.  

I used to have a bushy head of early 1990's, Pantene Pro-V hair.  Then when I was 21, my college tennis team all decided to shave our heads.  It wasn't for any altruistic reason, it wasn't like we were in solidarity with someone in Chemo, we just thought it would be silly and a bonding experience.  Of course, we decided to do it before a trip to a tennis tournament in Phoenix.  So we all duly shaved our heads and showed up in Arizona with cue-tip white heads and not enough sunscreen.  Great story.

My girlfriend at the time (now my wife) liked it, so I kept the style.  That was 15 years ago.  I would shave my head with a number 1 setting, then let it grow until I needed to start combing it, then re-shave it.  It was in style, too - I felt rather stylish with my grad-school chic, San Francisco dot-commer clothing, a 2-day shadow on my face with the shaved head.  

But sometimes, I would look at my hair and miss being able to feel the wind blow it around.  So finally, about 3 months ago, I decided to grow my hair back, just to see where it is.  It's been a fun but infuriating experience.  I can't believe how much mental energy I've put into it.  I've barely paid for a haircut since the Clinton Administration, but that's not half the problem.  

My forehead is huge now.  I've got the widow's peak that I had expected, but it's not the same hair I had in my early 20's.  Combing it makes me look like an extra from "Milk."  That's just not really my style.  I'm a dad, married, working full time, trying to build my career - I don't like taking this much time out of my day for vanity.  

I can't wear winter hats without thinking about how it messes up my hair.  I spend time in the bathroom that I hadn't before trying to make that fluffy part stay in place.  I've been using my wife's various hair-products - holding spray, leave-in conditioner.  I had even considered h air-drying it.  For what?  

So this brings me to the reason I'm really sorry for my dad.  Up until the late 1990's, it wasn't in style to shave your head.  Everyone had hair, even nearly bald men would grow their halo hair into a half-mullet.  Shaved heads meant you were in the military or a skin-head neo-nazi.  I don't know how or when exactly it became acceptable, but it did.  I'm sorry it wasn't in style in the 70's and 80's when my dad could have used the ego-boost and not have to worry about going bald as much.  

My dad's been shaving his head for about as long as I have now, and he looks great - it suits him.  I think it's about time I gave up the hair dream and rejoin him.  

Peace Corps being pushed on Indonesia

Just read this article in the LA Times, came across it through a NPCA Twitter post -

Indonesia still touchy about Peace Corps - Los Angeles Times

Apparently Secretary of State Clinton is pushing Indonesia to accept Peace Corps Volunteers, as a way to improve relations. This is the exact opposite way a Peace Corps program should be started. We work at the invitation of host country governments.

Starting a Peace Corps program in Indonesia under these circumstances would undermine the years and years of goodwill towards Peace Corps that has been built up since the 1970's, when PC was more notoriously used and discredited by the Nixon and ford administrations. If you read Confessions of an Economic Hitman, and if you believe what John Perkins is saying, you understand what I'm talking about. I was approached by a couple of other embittered old-timer RPCV's when I was a PC recruiter idealistically pushing PC as apolitical. It was a particular concern when I was recruiting at San Francisco State and UC Santa Cruz, and I know my Berkeley and Humboldt State colleagues were battered by those concerns as well.

We've got to set Clinton and the Obama administration straight - Peace Corps is apolitical.

I think Peace Corps just needs a big, fat change - they need to be modernized, basically. PC was created for the Cold War, and Clinton is still thinking in that mindset, that hearts and minds are there for us to 'win'. PC should really stress the collaboration angle, making ourselves available for helping people build their own capacities that they decide they want help improving.