Campus/Local Ideas

There are many local and campus issues at UNK and around the community of Kearney. Some issues that I have found interesting were as follows:
Rise in Tuition: An Oct. 2008 issue of the L.A. Times warns that tuition may rise approximately 6% for the 2009-2010 year for colleges nationwide including UNK. The main reason for this is state budget cuts. The main question I have is, isn't education one of the most important aspects of a state?
College Textbook Prices: A New York Times article, along with many other, addresses the issue of the cost of textbooks on campus. The main issue here is whether or not bookstores and professors consider the price of the textbook when they ask students to buy it. Is there any alternative? Now with UNK only have one bookstore, there is no other choice or price decision to be made.
Purchase of First Tier Event Center: This is a local issue that the public will have one more chance to vote on. This issue is the debate on whether or not the city of Kearney should purchase the event center located south of city limits. Most city residents, tazpayers,are against the purchase due to the rising of taxes in order to pay for the $2-$3 million center. the question I wonder is why are taxpayers responsible for this? Why not let a private company buy the center instead of raising the prices for local citizens. because of the revenue it could possibly bring to Kearney?

Nebraska State Issues

As I was reading through the newspapers, I found three key issues that were repeated a lot through Nebraska news papers.

Smoking Ban
Immigration
Gambling

A lot of the articles in the paper focus around the coming of the smoking ban that will go into affect June 1. It is interesting to read these articles and see how the ban has already affected some businesses. Another issue is that of immigration. The article above is a debatable article in which states that Nebraska needs to quickly address the issue. Lastly, I was surfing the web and came across the ever ending issue of gambling in Nebraska. The article above talks about gambling in the sense of what it could do to horse racing...which is something I never really thought about. It talks about how if Nebraska does not address the issue, horse racing will come to an end...pretty interesting! Some other state issues that I came across was that of education for the younger generation, state tuition increases, and of course job losses associated with the downfall of the economy. All very important and interesting issues.