Students protest debt on state Capitol steps
Student leaders took their displeasure with mounting debt to the Capitol Rotunda in Sacramento, Calif., on Feb. 7. In a rally organized by the UC Students Association, a group of approximately 250 students stood beneath umbrellas as they threw fake “checks” into the air, with the amounts written on the checks representing loans they had incurred during their time at the university.
Dancing and singing “It’s Raining Debt” — a song composed especially for the occasion — students expressed their displeasure with January’s budget proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, which offered limited growth for UC funding.
The group brought more than 5,500 checks filled out by students from across the UC system, totaling $201.5 million worth of student debt, according to a UCSA statement.
“Student fees rising/ Our aid getting low/ According to all sources/ Sac-to’s the place to go,” the students chanted. “Black, brown, white, queer/ Absolutely soaked in debt.”
Later in the week, UCSA called on Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and other state legislators to address the gap in access to public higher education.
The group sent out approximately 100 handwritten letters to targeted lawmakers, urging the UC Office of the President to commission a study looking into school-by-school variation in offerings of UC-required preparatory courses.
“All California students deserve a fair shot at higher education, especially at their public universities,” Revelle College Senior Senator and UCSA organizer Ted McCombs said. “It is unfair that thousands of youths who live in our poorest communities are practically denied access to the UC the first day they step into their high schools, unless they have the leisure time to take additional courses outside their high school. Our legislators need to take action immediately to close this opportunity gap.”
Professors say Social Security solutions exist
Three UC Berkeley economics experts have questioned President George W. Bush’s assessment that private savings accounts may represent the best way to fix the country’s Social Security system.
In question-and-answer interviews released by the university, some of the professors said they disagreed with the dismal assessment of the retirement program the president offered in his State of the Union address last week.
“It’s not something where the sky is falling and we can’t do anything about it,” economics professor and Director of UC Berkeley’s Burch Center on Tax Policy and Public Finance Alan Auerbach said. “We certainly can make no significant changes in the Social Security system and [still] fix it.”
Instead of Bush’s proposal, Auerbach said he recommends an approach that combines a higher retirement age, reduced benefits and higher taxes with a partial privatization scheme.
However, professor of economics and demographics Ronald Lee said he disagreed with criticism charging that the Bush administration was overestimating the scope of the program.
“As a demographer and as someone who has been calculating and doing projects on Social Security finances for quite a number of years, I think those criticisms are mistaken,” he said.
Lee stopped short of endorsing a full privatization scheme, however, saying that the challenges of fixing the program could be addressed through “incremental steps.”
Economics professor and Nobel laureate Daniel McFadden said the prospect of privatization raised important issues that needed consideration by the public.
“The conservatives say people should be free to make their own choices, and that sounds good,” he said. “But some people are going to choose badly, and then the question is, ‘What’s everyone going to do, what’s the society going to do?’ Are we really prepared to deal with people who are living on the streets and starving?”
Seaweed may prevent breast cancer, researchers find
Kelp, a type of vegetation often found washed ashore on beaches, may decrease the risk of estrogen-dependent diseases like breast cancer, researchers at UC Berkeley have found.
In a study published in the Journal of Nutrition, they showed that a seaweed-rich diet helped reduce the levels of the potent sex hormone estradiol in rats.
The outcome may augur similar results for humans, scientists have suggested, pointing to a large consumption of kelp in Japan as a possible explanation for a lower rate of breast cancer in Japanese women.
“This study opens up a new avenue for research leading to cancer-preventive agents,” professor of environmental health and co-author of the study Martyn Smith stated in a university announcement.
In a separate study of human ovarian cell cultures, conducted in collaboration with UC Davis, kelp extract led to a 23- to 35-percent decrease in estradiol levels, the researchers reported.
