Sheesh!

Via SistersTalk, here's more evidence that the republicans are interested in punishing anyone who does not come from a background of privilege. Their new version of the Higher Education Act would penalize those schools where students take longer than four years to finish up an undergraduate degree.

A key example of the Republicans' punitive approach is their proposal to tie federal aid to colleges' graduation rates. Those schools whose students took the longest to attain their degree would face cuts in federal funding. This would be sure to hurt public institutions, since graduation rates are lowest among the students that they serve: those who are low-income, older, working, students of color, and the first in their family to go to college.
[...]
Educators, unions and Congressional Democrats propose a different route to making college more affordable: increase the resources available to students. "Much of the noise [on tuition] is a diversion from the real issues," said Mark Smith, director of government relations for the AAUP. "State funding is down, and the purchasing power of the Pell Grant is down a lot." In 1980, a Pell Grant covered 77 % of average costs for a public, four-year college education, including tuition, fees, and room-and-board. But by 2003, a Pell Grant paid for less than 41% of the costs at a four-year public college. Last academic year, the maximum Pell Grant was officially capped at $5,800 - but Congress has only appropriated enough funds for grants of up to $4,050.

Putting yourself through college by working a job and taking classes? The republicans are sick of people like you. On your third major because you weren't sure what you wanted to do until your junior year? The republicans want to discourage that sort of silly behavior. Took a semester off to care for your dying grandmother? The republicans have no use for that kind of sentimentality! Double major? Don't be so damned ambitious! Did you have do take a year off to work after your father's job was sent overseas in the Bush economy? The republicans will have none of that! Gosh, don't you just love the smell of compassionate conservatism?

Honestly, the Republicans' version of the Higher Education Act doesn't surprise me. If it made an ounce of sense, that would surprise me. I shouldn't say that. It makes perfect sense if the goal is to maintain power and wealth in certain classes. The less college funding you give to people (like Blacks, Hispanics, women, lower-classes, and other minority groups) the more power the white male can maintain.

Since Republicans have effectively changed the way top public universaties (universities with great graduation rates) and colleges dispurse funding to minority students -- with their numerous changes to Affirmative Action -- the only thing left to do now is cut funding to the cheaper public universities (universities with poorer graduation rates) where minority students have fled. It's a brilliant plan really -- a plan that's so see-through even a deaf and blind man can call them on this one.