Loans a Problem for Students

By PAMELA ELLERMAN

August 07, 2008

Source: Daily Pennsylvanian, U. Penn

With the cost of tuition rising faster than income levels, loans provide a last-minute recourse for families nationwide as tuition bills roll in.

Yet the credit crunch has made finding providers for federal loans more difficult and private loans costlier and scarcer, increasing stress for students and families still seeking funds for tuition.

Many experts stress that federal loans are still available. Although up to 124 institutions have announced suspensions in federal loan programs as of last week, according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org, most students should be able to procure federal loans but may need to look around before finding a provider.

“We’re not seeing the same number of lenders exiting” federal loan programs as last spring, said Justin Draeger of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

Even though federal loan programs generally offer better rates and terms, many students opt for private loans for administrative reasons and because of appealing marketing.

Half of all private loan borrowers failed to file a FAFSA, which automatically renders students ineligible for federal loan programs, according to the American Council on Education.

Many borrowers are unaware that shopping for private education loans can potentially lower one’s credit score when lenders make inquiries on their credit reports.

Students are also misled by seemingly appealing interest rates – generally reserved for customers with crisp credit scores – and by an abundance of hidden fees.

Up to 28 institutions have suspended private loan programs, which will make these loans more selective and costlier, said Kantrowitz.

Whereas previously customers with credit scores of 620 could find a private student loan somewhere, lenders may now put the cutoff at 650 or even 700.

However, Kantrowitz said he expects the situation to improve for the next academic year as capital markets begin recovering.

Penn’s new financial aid program – which will phase out loans entirely by fall 2009 – provides some relief for borrowers.

“The no-loan policies implemented thus far have already significantly reduced overall undergraduate borrowing,” Michael Light of Student Financial Services wrote in an e-mail.

As the sub-prime mortgage crisis extends into various sectors of the economy, public uncertainty remains high.

In a recent survey, TuitionBids.com found that 59% of 500 students and their families felt worse about their ability to pay for college when compared to last year. Another survey by MyRichUncle.com found that 57% of 1000 parents with children soon to head to college were uncertain about which loans to apply for first.

Families are not the only ones worried. A survey of financial aid administrators by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators found that 90% were concerned about student loans in light of the credit crunch.

Recent federal action provides possible relief for students.

Although the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which passed 380-49 and 83-8 in the House and Senate respectively, remains premature until signed by the president, it will simplify financial aid paperwork and ensure greater transparency on the cost of attending college, as well as increased disclosures on private student loans.

“We are still assessing what impact there may be,” said Light.

“The main changes students will see in their financial aid packages will be increases in the amount of existing federal aid, if eligible,” he added. “Full need will continue to be met, but a larger part of it may be met from federal dollars.”

Tuition Re-regulation to See ‘09 Docket

By: TERESA MIOLI – The Daily Texan

June 9, 2008

 

State Rep. Sylvester Turner, a Houston Democrat, announced Friday at the Capitol, his plan to file a bill next session to reverse tuition deregulation, calling it a “bad experiment.”Tuition deregulation took away tuition-setting power from the state and gave it to academic institutions. Gov. Rick Perry signed the tuition deregulation bill on June 22, 2003, and the measure took effect in September of that year.

Sen. John Whitmire of Houston and seven other Democratic legislators accompanied Speaker Pro Tem Turner on Friday.

“We should have never deregulated tuition,” Whitmire said. “It has not worked.”

Turner said funding higher education should be a priority, especially with the possibility that the state Legislature will start the upcoming session with a surplus of $10 billion to $12 billion.

Average tuition and fees at the 10 largest Texas public universities increased at annual rates of 10 percent or more from 2003 to 2006, according to Turner’s presentation.

University President Bill Powers said he is concerned about tuition increases, but believes deregulation has had a moderating effect on tuition.

The average rate of increases in tuition and fees was 13.5 percent from 1990 to 2003 and 10.6 percent from 2003 to 2007, according to Powers’ April 2008 report on tuition. The average increase from 2003 to 2009 was a proposed 8.7 percent.

Powers said university budgets are increasing faster than general revenue, which causes tuition to increase.

“We’re always willing to work with the legislators,” Powers said. “Our goal is to keep tuition as low as possible.”

Whitmire and Democratic Rep. Ruth McClendon of San Antonio challenged regents and school administrators to ask the Legislature to increase higher education funding before raising tuition.

UT Senate of College Councils President Scott Fulford and Student Government President Keshav Rajagopalan both said they do not support repealing tuition deregulation.

Rajagopalan said deregulation affords institutions the flexibility to meet the specific needs of students. He said he would hate to see the state take up the reins and turn tuition regulation into a political battle. Rajagopalan also said he assumes SG will take up the issue as well as ask the state to increase funding for higher education.

Tuition deregulation has allowed for greater transparency concerning the allocation of tuition and fees and has kept the University competitive, Fulford said.

Turner said he plans to speak with Powers and outgoing Chancellor Mark Yudof concerning deregulation.

“We’re not trying to hurt the quality of programming. We’re not trying to force them to lay off faculty and not be able to compete to get excellent faculty,” Turner said. “This is a question of who should provide the funding and what should that mechanism be.”

Turner said he plans to introduce the bill in the 2009 legislative session and that tuition regulation could become effective as early as June 2009. He said the Legislature could also provide additional revenue to colleges and universities so the institutions would not have to raise tuition, and in some cases, could lower it.

 

Bill Protects Access to Student Loans

04/22/2008

By COLIN O’CONNOR

Daily Bruin (UCLA)

(U-WIRE) LOS ANGELES – A bill aimed at safeguarding federal student loan access was passed by the House of Representatives April 17, with backers hailing it as a necessary step toward protecting the education economy amid the current credit crisis.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor, sponsored the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act, HR 5715, which passed the House of Representatives in a resounding 383-27 vote.

“The purpose of the legislation is to ensure that students and parents can continue to have access to the federal student aid they rely on, regardless of what’s happening in the nation’s financial markets,” said Rachel Racusen, deputy communications director for the committee.

First, the bill would increase student loan limits by increasing the annual cap by $2,000, which would result in a new aggregate limit of $31,000 for dependent undergraduates and $57,500 for independent undergraduates.

Brittny McCarthy, director of federal relations for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said her organization believes the loan limit changes are unnecessary but the bill’s other provisions have merit.

“We do not support increases to the aggregate federal loan limit. There are other good precautionary measures in the bill that we do support, though,” she said.

Director of the UCLA Financial Aid Office Ronald Johnson said increasing the loan limits “would mean students would not be compelled to borrow from private loan sources.”

Johnson added that the increased limits would help nonresident students at the University of California, who have to pay a higher cost and may therefore need more flexibility in getting loans to fund their education.

The bill would also grant the U.S. Department of Education the ability to back up the federal loan market in the event that lenders cannot meet demand.

The federal loan market consists of two programs of distribution. The Direct Loan Program registers a school with the federal government to allow students to receive loans directly from the Department of Education. The Federal Family Education Loan Program sets up a system in which banks pay students taking loans but get backed up by the federal government in the case of a loan default.

Many University of California at Los Angeles students get loans from Federal Family Education Loan Program-approved banks and companies, said Nicholas Novello, a supervisor at UCLA Student Loan Services.

“The Direct Loan Program is currently only 20 percent of total student loan volume. The DOE is saying they can handle one-third of the (Federal Family Education Loan) volume,” which would accommodate an additional 3 million borrowers, McCarthy said.

McCarthy added that her organization would like to see such a provision activated “only if the economy is slow to return to a state of normalcy.”

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., proposed companion legislation in the Senate. His bill, the Strengthening Student Aid for All Act, contains many comparable provisions for keeping federal loans stable in an unstable market.

N.C. State senior elects to sell vote on auction site

04/21/2008

By Muping Gan The Chronicle (Duke)

(U-WIRE) DURHAM, N.C. — Sara Yasin gave up her vote for the upcoming North Carolina Democratic presidential primary when she decided there was not enough distinction between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to swing her vote toward either.

 

Yasin, a North Carolina State University senior, placed her vote for sale on eBay for 15 cents April 4.

 

Four days later, the North Carolina State Board of Elections asked her to remove the listing when bidding reached $11.50.

 

Don Wright, the board’s general counsel, said board members received a call from California notifying them of Yasin’s auction on eBay.

 

“We contacted her and told her it was a state and federal felony to try to sell her vote,” he said. “As soon as she realized how serious it was, she took it down.”

 

Wright added that vote-buying is a crime that has been decreasing rapidly in North Carolina and said the issue is seldom confronted by the Board of Elections.

 

Yasin said although she thought putting her vote on eBay might be wrong, she did not know it was a felony.

 

“When I found out, I talked to someone and apologized,” Yasin said. “They were really, really nice, and I ended the bidding and declared no winner on eBay.”

 

Yasin added that voting is important to her and she was trying to make a point rather than show a disregard for the right to vote.

 

“I’ve been put in a position where people expect me as a Muslim — a minority — to vote for Obama, and as a woman to vote for Clinton,” Yasin said. “I don’t want to feel like I owe anyone my vote.”

 

She said she had planned to donate the proceeds to Satellite, a campus group that funds an annual retreat at NCSU for rural North Carolina students interested in finance and technology careers.

 

Despite the premature end to her online auction, Yasin said the important thing was that it generated conversation among students on her campus.

 

“People have been aggressive about supporting one candidate or the other, like [either candidate] is the answer to all of the U.S.’s problems,” she said. “It’s good to be passionate about your country and politics, but putting so much blind faith into someone who is probably going to change their policies once they’re elected — it’s dangerous.”

 

Bill Sets Time Limit For Alert Systems (Higher Education Institutions)

04/16/2008

 By LEE ZUCKER

The Maneater (U. Missouri)

 (U-WIRE) COLUMBIA, MO. — Within a week of the one-year anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy proposed a bill to place a time limit on when to activate campus emergency alert systems.

McCarthy, D-N.Y., introduced the Virginia Tech Victims Campus Emergency Response Policy and Notification Act to the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday. The bill would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, which requires institutions of higher education to disclose their emergency response and evacuation procedures.

In response to the two-hour delay in alerting faculty, staff and students at Virginia Tech, McCarthy’s bill provides solutions for avoiding or controlling further disasters, McCarthy’s spokesman Raymond Zaccaro said.

The Virginia Tech Victims Act will require higher education institutions to begin alert procedures for students and employees within 30 minutes of a confirmed emergency. In addition, institutions must make emergency responses and evacuation procedures available for students and staff and test procedures every year.

The UM system emergency alert system — which uses telephone calls, e-mails and text messages to alert students of an emergency — has the capacity to comply with all aspects of the bill.

“Regardless of the direction of the bill, the university is committed to the safety and welfare of the students and staff,” UM system spokeswoman Jennifer Hollingshead said. “The process we’re going through with our notification system at the university is just an indicator of that commitment.”

The UM system’s mass e-mail alert system has been available for more than 10 years, but in August of last year, the system signed a contract with National Notification Network, a provider of mass notification services that is currently employed by Virginia Tech.

The system, put into effect at the end of November last year, allows those registered as group leaders in the university system to activate an alert any time by phone or computer in less than five minutes. This includes MU Police Chief Jack Watring and several trained staff members.

“The capability is there, ready to be used at any second,” Information Technology Director Terry Robb said. “But obviously police have to evaluate what’s the best method to use before they just automatically send something.”

The alert system works in phases, first calling every cellular phone registered in the MU system. Once a student or faculty member receives that notification, that individual must confirm they received the call by dialing a number on the keypad. If not confirmed after the call, a text message will be sent to every registered individual. The confirmation works in the same way, and if not confirmed, an e-mail will be sent to individuals who did not confirm the first two notifications. When all confirmations have been received, the alert procedure is complete.

Although Missouri’s alert system can be activated quickly, due to the sheer size of the university, there is a two to four hour window until all alert procedures have been successfully completed.

The bill doesn’t require universities to notify everyone registered within the 30-minute window, only to activate the notification center.

“What the bill calls for is not to jump the gun on confirming an incident,” Zaccaro said. “However, once they know that there’s an emergency, they have the responsibility to get that information out within 30 minutes.”

1,000 Professors Issue Joint Statement Backing Cheap Textbooks

04/16/2008

 

By Audrey Campbell

Daily Texan (U. Texas)

 

(U-WIRE) AUSTIN, Texas — More than 1,000 professors issued a statement Tuesday declaring their preference for high quality, affordable textbooks instead of expensive commercial textbooks.

 

The professors, who work at more than 300 U.S. universities, signed the Open Textbooks Petition in an effort to alleviate the high cost of textbooks for students.

 

“Textbook expenses boil down to the way the market works,” Nicole Allen, a spokeswoman for the Student Public Interest Research Groups. “The people choosing them, professors, aren’t the people who have to buy them, and that gives publishers a disproportionate amount of power, because they know students are required to buy whatever books are assigned to the class.”

 

Publishers maintain high costs by bundling materials, making students buy things they do not need and issuing new copies of books every year, Allen said.

 

Textbooks cost students an average of $900 per year, according to a study conducted by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

 

“Often, students have to buy a new book even if the only changes in it are that the workbook questions have been moved around,” Allen said.

 

The professors advocate open textbooks, which are complete, reviewed textbooks written by academics that can be used online at no cost and printed for a small cost.

 

“Electronic textbooks would be much cheaper. I’m interested in more up-to-date possibilities such as electronic and library sources that would allow me to keep my materials up-to-date and cover the topics that I’m interested in covering,” said Dick Richardson, a UT integrative biology professor.

Democratic Candidates Show Political Strategy at Wednesday’s Debate

04/17/2008
By Andrew Fiorentino
(U-WIRE) NEW YORK – In a debate that moderator Charlie Gibson called “round 15 in a scheduled 10-rounder,” Barack Obama kept his guard up and Hillary Clinton pulled few punches.
The two remaining candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination debated at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia Wednesday night as a prelude to the suddenly relevant Pennsylvania primary on April 22. The debate was intended to enable Pennsylvania voters to pick an opponent for John McCain in November, but it may only have proven that for all the talk of change, this election has not moved away from politics as usual.
After the latest fruitless attempt at getting the candidates to agree that whichever of the two lost would accept the role of running mate, moderators Gibson and George Stephanopoulos launched into questioning that would overpowered this debate. The moderators pressed Obama on his comments about bitter small-town Americans; lack of an American flag pin on his lapel; racial comments made by his former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright; and his association with William Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground, a revolutionary group that was responsible for politically motivated bombings in the 1960s and ’70s.
As Obama tried to turn the debate to issues such as the Iraq war, health care and the economy, Gibson and Stephanopoulos applied pressure to controversial issues that have recently dominated the Democratic nomination process. Although Clinton’s comments about dodging sniper fire when she visited Bosnia were briefly discussed, the former first lady brushed it off with a joke and an apology, while Obama’s attempts to explain himself and disown the words of Wright and Ayers resulted only in more aggressive questioning.
“Wedge issues, hot-button issues, end up taking prominence in our politics,” Obama said. “And part of the problem is that when those issues are exploited, we never get to solve the issues that people really have to get some relief on, whether it’s health care or education or jobs.”
Clinton, calm and in control, repeatedly turned the spotlight back on her rival, implying that McCain’s campaign would have an easier time attacking Obama due to his controversies, but Obama retaliated. He criticized what he called a “game” in which the ideas of anyone he knows are attributed to him, and responded to Clinton’s concern about associating with Ayers and the Weather Underground by noting that President Bill Clinton pardoned two members of that organization during his time in office.
Once the moderators changed the topic from controversies to the more pertinent issues of the day, the candidates made it apparent why there has been so much focus on scandal and intrigue in the recent weeks of the campaign: the similarity of their platforms. Both candidates made note of their support for universal health care, although they were given no opportunity to elaborate on it, and both reiterated that they would begin withdrawing troops from Iraq within 60 days of being sworn in. They criticized President Bush over his handling of the war and painted McCain as someone who would only continue Bush’s Middle East policies – particularly taking cues on what to do in Iraq from General David Petraeus rather than deciding on his own.
“The bottom line for me is: We don’t know what will happen as we withdraw,” Clinton said. We do know what will happen if we stay mired in Iraq. The Iraqi government will not accept responsibility for its own future. Our military will continue to be stretched thin. And our soldiers will be on their second, third, even their fourth deployment. And we will not be able to reassert our leadership and our moral authority in the world.”
Both candidates criticized Bush over what they viewed as a failed policy on dealing with Iran, and pledged to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons or attacking Israel.
“I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States,” Clinton said.
“My belief is that they should also know that I will take no options off the table when it comes to preventing them from using nuclear weapons or obtaining nuclear weapons,” Obama said. “And that would include any threats directed at Israel, or any of our allies.”
The candidates disagreed on how help stabilize Social Security. Obama was open to the idea of raising the cap on the payroll tax if he determined that the additional revenue would help. Clinton disagreed. She said Obama was willing to raise taxes on the middle-class, which both candidates promised not to do, and referenced the bipartisan commission created by Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill in 1983 as a way of finding a solution to Social Security then and now.
“I will say, number one: Don’t cut benefits on current beneficiaries,” Clinton said. “They’re already having a hard enough time. And number two: Do not impose additional tax burdens on middle-class families. There are lots of ways we can fix Social Security that don’t impose those burdens, and I will do that.”
Obama, who has been hounded by allegations that he has no real answers, seemed to have caught Clinton doing just that.
“That commission raised the retirement age, Charlie, and also raised the payroll tax,” Obama said. “And so Senator Clinton – she can’t have it both ways. You can’t come at me for proposing a solution that will save Social Security without burdening middle-income Americans and then suggest that somehow she’s got a magic solution.”
This debate was one of the rare occasions when the candidates discussed gun control, an issue close to the hearts of many Philadelphians due to the frequency of gun violence in their city.Clinton noted that there is one murder every day, on average in the city. Both candidates gave their support for the right to bear arms, as granted by the Constitution, but expressed support for solving the problem of gun violence at the local rather than federal level.
“There’s the reality of gun ownership and the tradition of gun ownership that’s passed on from generation to generation,” Obama said. “You know, when you listen to people who have hunted, and they talk about the fact that they went hunting with their fathers or their mothers, then that is something that is deeply important to them and, culturally, they care about deeply. But you also have the reality of what’s happening here in Philadelphia and what’s happening in Chicago.”
Clinton and Obama also touched economic issues and made assertions of market manipulation and price gouging by gasoline companies and energy traders, and promised to investigate it and support a windfall profits tax.
Both candidates advocated affirmative action for people who are less privileged, regardless of their ethnic backgrounds, and Obama touched on creating more aid for college to replace high-interest student loans, but despite the 19 colleges and universities in Philadelphia, the moderators did not ask any questions about higher education.
The candidates are next scheduled to debate April 27 in Raleigh, N.C., although Obama has not yet committed to the date.

PETA Files Complaint About University of Connecticut Cat Experiments

04/16/2008

 

By CHRISTOPHER DURAY

The Daily Campus (U. Connecticut)

 

(U-WIRE) STORRS, Conn. – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will investigate two University of Connecticut researchers for animal welfare act violations.

The animal rights group People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) registered a formal complaint on April 9 alleging that a cat had died in preparation for an experiment that required a hole be drilled in its skull.

The researchers in question, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering Monty Escabi and associate professor of psychology Heather Read would not comment on the matter, but UConn Media Communications Director Karen Grava released a statement that said that the PETA complaint was incorrect in several places.

“As a result of the PETA complaint, The USDA is planning to come and complete an inspection, but that has not happened yet,” Grava said in an interview. “But I can tell you that some of the claims PETA has made are false.”

The research being done related to how the brain processes sounds, in particular how the ear and auditory cortex function to interpret background noise and focus in on one particular sound, such as a person’s voice.

The goal of the research was to aid in the diagnosis of poor hearing and to improve current hearing prosthetics, possibly to the point of creating a curative implant that would greatly benefit the 28 million Americans with hearing impairments.

According to Grava, the experiments were approved by the National Institute of Health and UConn’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, which must make sure that all animal-related experiments are carried out ethically.

Justin Grossman, a UConn graduate who works for PETA as a research associate, said that the group became aware of possible illegal animal tests after an inside source tipped them off to Professors Escabi and Read’s experiments.

“That’s how we learned that the cat who was initially used at the health center for an intubation course ended up at Storrs and eventually died in a laboratory while having a hole drilled in her skull for this experiment,” he said.

PETA alleges that the research violated key violations in the Animal Welfare Act. The experiments included paralyzing cats with drugs, cutting holes in their throats for breathing tubes, drilling into their skulls, and removing a portion of their brains before being placed in a soundproof room for four days and then killed. The cat mentioned in PETA’s complaint is said to have bled to death during this procedure, and that an autopsy was not performed.

Grava’s press release said that this was an inaccurate summation of the experiments.

“The PETA account provided to the media has several serious inaccuracies: The truth is that the cat in question was never paralyzed and did not bleed to death,” she said.

The complaint also says that UConn did not properly seek alternative research methods that would have spared the cat. 

“You can do experiments like this invasively and completely safely with human patients and many highly rated institutions do perform them frequently,” said Grossman.

Grava denied this charge as well, saying that the research team had already exhausted all alternative experiments before moving on to cats, whose hearing ranges and anatomies are similar to those of humans.

“[The researchers] are using computer modeling and they have used humans, but they have to use a limited amount of animals in order to make any gains whatsoever,” she said.

PETA has also taken issue with the UConn Health Center’s (UCHC) use of animals in some intubation training exercises. Intubation is a medical technique of inserting a plastic tube into the body, commonly to provide a clear airway for breathing. Last week, PETA offered to send the UCHC a non-animal simulator for intubation training.

Northern Illinois University Receives $50,000 to Increase Security

04/16/2008

 

By LEE BLANK

Northern Star (Northern Illinois U.)

 

(U-WIRE) DEKALB, Ill. – Northern Illinois University, along with six other area colleges, will receive $50,000 for upgrades to campus security. U.S.

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Egan) hosted a press conference Monday at Rockford College, announcing he had secured $350,000 to be split among NIU and six area colleges. Each institution will be allocated $50,000 toward upgrading security priorities.

“There are no strings with this; we trust the judgment of those running these institutions,” Manzullo said in a Kane County Chronicle article Tuesday.

“As we continue to heal and remember the victims of the NIU tragedy, we must look ahead and implement measures to bolster safety on our college campuses to try to prevent it from happening again,” he said in a press release. “I secured these funds to help our institutions of higher learning, in northern Illinois, purchase the equipment they need to better protect their students and teachers.”

Congressman Manzullo’s spokesman, Rich Carter, said the funding came from Fiscal Year 2008’s appropriations process.

Carter said the congressman worked with NIU President John Peters and Ken Zehnder, NIU’s assistant director of External Affairs, concerning the funding.

According to the press release on Manzullo’s Web site, NIU will utilize the funds to purchase heavy-duty emergency medical kits for all major campus buildings as well as emergency response vehicles. The medical kits will contain dozens of items needed for faster trauma response.

“We plan to use it to put Blue Light emergency phones in areas external to campus and in the parking lots,” said Larry Apperson, Kishuakee College vice president of Student Services.

According to Manzullo’s website, the phones will provide a direct link to the campus communications center allowing students to pick up the handsets or press a call button to report crimes, fires, medical emergencies or to request an escort.

Other area colleges scheduled to receive funding are Rockford College, Rock Valley College, McHenry County College, Highland Community College and Sauk Valley Community College. NIU Finance and Facilities was unavailable for comment at press time.

Juicy Campus Site Will Not be Blocked at Baylor University

04/16/2008

 

By ASHLEY KILLOUGH

The Lariat (Baylor University)

 

(U-WIRE) WACO, Texas – Despite Baylor University’s Student Senate backing a proposal to block JuicyCampus.com from campus computers, Baylor will not be Juicy-free.

According to a statement released by Information Technology Services, Baylor’s policy on Juicy Campus states that the university is “not the content publisher for JuicyCampus.com.

Any questions concerning content on the site should be directed to the publisher. Baylor does not filter web content other than pornography, and all other institutions in the Big 12 do not filter content at all.”

Travis Plummer, Baylor’s student body president, acknowledged the difficulty of Baylor’s decision and said the proposal was even highly debated within Student Senate.

“I don’t think Baylor is comfortable with arbitrarily making the decision to block the site because it involves a lot of gray issues,” Plummer said. “It’s hard to regulate what is true and what is freedom of speech. It also poses the question of whether other sites like BUBooks.com should be regulated as well.”

Plummer said Student Government has been quiet about the administration’s policy in an effort to avoid pumping up publicity for Juicy Campus and directing more hits to the site.

Thomas Herndon, a Kansas City, Kan., senior, agrees with Baylor’s policy.

“I feel like it is the right response from Baylor because if we ban Juicy Campus, then there are a lot of other sites we would need to block,” Herndon said. “It would be a question of how far we are willing to take it, and it involves a lot more time and energy than Baylor needs to spend.”

The idea of banning Juicy Campus has been discussed among student governments at schools across the country, including Pepperdine University, Columbia University and Yale University. So far, however, school administrators have granted none of the proposals.

Not only are students concerned over malicious content published on the site, but questions over security are being raised as well.

The New York Times reported that a junior at Colgate University was arrested in March after police linked his computer with messages that proposed starting a shooting spree in order to get classes cancelled.

Since the site’s debut last semester, many Baylor students have logged on in shock to find their own name plastered across the forum.

Amanda Walden, a Dallas sophomore, received a text message from her boyfriend that said she had “made it” on Juicy Campus. When Walden later checked the post, she was shocked to see herself anonymously dubbed a “filth bag” and “slut.”

“I was pretty humiliated that day, because a lot of people were talking about it,” Walden said. “It’s not a big deal to me anymore, because I knew it wasn’t true and it was just someone that probably didn’t like me.”

After word spread that Walden’s friend, who was also mentioned in the post, might be getting her parents to hire a detective to investigate the issue, the culprit came clean. And to Walden’s dismay, the nameless writer was one of her best friends.

“I cried when I found out,” Walden said. “It ruined our friendship, and it ripped us apart.”

Walden’s story was featured last week in a People magazine article about students negatively affected by Juicy Campus.

“When I was given the opportunity to speak about it, I jumped at the opportunity,” Walden said. “I know that Baylor is one of the most popular schools on the site, and I wanted to prove that there are Baylor students who are against Juicy Campus.”

After the story ran, Walden received e-mails and Facebook messages from girls across the country thanking her for sharing her story and putting a face to the pain that many students feel.