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6 – The University Star OPINIONS Thursday, February 24, 2011

Firesheep

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Campus Pulse How would you be affected by financial aid cuts?
blurs
“If I lost my financial aid I wouldn’t be in school anymore. All of my education is paid for with
scholarships and grants. I’d have to take out some major loans if I wanted to stay in school, either that
creeping,

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or join the Army. That would make me so angry.”
— Julianna Weldon, biochemistry freshman stealing

“I’m currently not receiving any financial aid because I’m able to afford my first two years. After those two
years, if I couldn’t get any financial aid don’t know how I would be able to pay for school. I don’t want any

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scholarships or grants to be cut.”
— Kassie Shanafelt, pre-communication disorders sophomore

“I’d have to find an alternative way to pay for school if I couldn’t get financial aid. Right now I’m receiving

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loans, so the only other way I could possibly be funded would be for me to ask someone else. If I couldn’t
afford to pay for school I’d probably just have to wait to enroll until I could.”
— Courtney Lueders, exercise and sports science senior By Caitlin Clark
Assistant Opinions Editor

I like to creep. Not in an


excessive “I’m going to
follow you home and watch
“I don’t receive financial aid at the moment except for loans. If I was, though, and financial aid got cut, I’d you sleep” kind of way, but in
be screwed. I wouldn’t be able to go to school here.” the “I’m going to add you on
— Courtney Rodriguez, photography junior Facebook just so I can judge
you by your unimpressive sta-
tuses” way. Whenever I find
out a mutual friend’s profile is
public I feel like a teenager on

Try again, Gov. Perry Financial literacy crucial


their 16th birthday who just
got the red convertible they
always wanted. God-awful
prom pictures from 2008?

one laughed.)
This initiative to lower costs
to life after graduation Don’t mind if I do.
A Feb. 10 University Star ar-
ticle brought to my attention
is due to expected cuts to public By Amy Degnan sics of our free market system. that a simple Firefox plug-in
university funding. An article in Guest Columnist The FINRA Investor Education Foun- called Firesheep can give
The Austin American-Statesman dation found that 36 percent of respon- someone the ability to take
reported public university’s
budgets would be cut 7.7 percent,
and the House’s proposed budget
I t’s no secret that money is tight. Ask
any student at Texas State, or any
university. Ask the legislature. Ask the
dents did not know the interest rate on
the credit card they used most. A simple
request by phone can lower your interest
control of another person’s
social media site over unen-
crypted wireless networks.
would cut spending on the TEXAS federal government. rate by up to 3 percent if in your account My first thought: Time to
grant, the state’s main financial One of the biggest problems facing is in good standing. In the Gallup-HOPE shine.
aid program, by 41 percent. Americans at all levels involves financial Financial Literacy Index, Gallup suggests The prospect of being able
The Statesman reported Perry literacy. Did you know that more than that although government statistics pin to stalk to my heart’s content
suggests including “online class- half of all Americans are living paycheck- the unemployment rate above the 10 on the Facebook and Twitter
By Chip Wozniak es, classes at no-frills campuses, to-paycheck? A total of 24 percent of all percent mark, the real percentage of un- profiles of students using Tex-
Opinions Columnist credit for prior learning,” and oth- Americans in the last five years are en- employed Americans is probably closer as State’s open wireless net-
er elements as a means to achieve gaged in some form of higher cost, non- to 20 percent. work sounded great at first.

T his May, I will finally part


ways with the Texas State
his goal. Perry’s inspiration came
directly from Gates’ comments,
campus and sadly say goodbye, if according to the article. Just like
bank borrowing, including payday loans
or advances on a tax refund; and when it
came to fundamental financial concepts,
HOPE states that for the United States
and others looking at strategies for cre-
ating jobs in their respective economies,
Looking at the issue from the
perspective of someone with
a maturity level higher than
only temporarily, to the beloved current lectures, I’m sure online Americans, on average, were able to there is a need to return to an environ- that of a 12-year-old, howev-
free speech zone, beautiful Sewell instruction will give students ad- answer correctly three of five questions. ment that encourages small businesses, er, revealed to me the plug-in
Park, and even that damn hill be- equate reason to drink and party This is troubling news. entrepreneurship and self-employment could easily compromise my
hind Old Main I have to conquer on the weekends. But without At Texas State, business students and projects, and all of this starts with un- private information. This is a
like a boss twice a week. I’d love a classroom to meet and make money savvy cats in the department of derstanding the language of money and serious issue all people need
to assume these personal land- friends, body shots are likely to family and consumer sciences are get- financial literacy. to be aware of.
marks will remain for future Bob- become MacBook Pro Unibody- ting grounded on the basics and more. It’s understandable that the most im- Students and faculty mem-
cats, possibly even for children of shots, a saddening realization for A group of public relations students are portant concern on the minds of soon- bers using wireless Internet
my own, but the state budget, the many. working to educate the university and to-be graduates is getting a job. It’s also on campus need to use the
Internet and Rick Perry are work- Gates and Perry would have San Marcos community on financial understandable, but unfortunate, that encrypted Texas State net-
ing to change higher education as you believe these at-home de- matters. This is a problem that affects the last thing on most soon-to-be gradu- work. No one should be using
we know it for good. grees on a budget are as effective people of all ages, from primary students ates’ minds is retirement. Young adults an unsecure wireless net-
Bill Gates said at the Techon- in educating young minds as to senior citizens. College students jug- need to start retirement planning with work. The more I think about
omy 2010 conference colleges their in-class counterparts. From gling financial loans along with jobs and their first job. If your employer offers a it, the more it doesn’t make
need to be less “place-based.” my experience, students enroll coursework are hardly alone with finan- 401(k) plan, sign up for it. If there’s no sense.
According to an article on Tech- in online courses for a limited cial literacy issues. such plan, divert some of your paycheck Hacking of this nature has
Crunch, Gates’ “overall point is number of reasons. Some benefit The vast majority of Americans are into an Individual Retirement Account or been around for years, but
that it’s just too expensive and too from a more flexible schedule or finding it hard to manage money and a Roth IRA. Retirement may be decades Firesheep’s wide accessibility
hard to get these upper-level edu- lightened workload. But mainly I save for long-term personal goals, such down the road, but you must make long- has fundamentally altered the
cations.” Though he is addressing see students use online courses as buying a house or retiring. When range planning part of your life plan. nature of the threat. Access-
legitimate contemporary con- to avoid responsibility and ac- things get tight, it is the financially il- Setting up automatic contributions to ing another person’s personal
cerns of price and access, Gates countability, both detrimental to literate who find it hardest to adjust. If either one of these retirement vehicles information used to require a
spent his college years in front of their education. Do we, the future Americans do not have the education to at a young age will help you build wealth trained expert, but Firesheep
a computer screen. I can’t imagine bosses of Texas business, want to understand the language of money today, painlessly. now gives non-trained people
he has an accurate grasp on the hire these students? Nope. and skills to manage their bank account, Take charge of finances to secure a this capability, said Seth Niel-
social side of education. In fact, Soon, I’ll look at my framed Tex- Americans become an economic servant. better future. For now, stop spending son, senior security analyst
Gates didn’t actually receive a de- as State diploma and regard it not Americans spend $1.22 for every more than you earn; live within your with Baltimore-based Inde-
gree from Harvard until 2007. just as the culmination of hard $1 earned. That spells d-e-b-t and the means. Financial security is attained by pendent Security Evaluators,
Facing criticism for record work and money spent but rather hardships that come with it. Networks increased earning capacity (better jobs), said in a Feb. 10 University
budget shortfalls, Gov. Rick Perry as a record of my experiences, the Financial Institution at Indiana State managing money will now and setting Star article.
took Gates’ bait. In his State of sights, sounds and even smells University reports that young adults aside and growing funds for the future. The idea of a random stu-
the State address, Perry called that accompany my time here. between 20 and 24 represent the fastest One action you can take today — and dent sitting in the LBJ Student
for universities to “develop bach- Fortunately, advancing technol- growing segment of bankruptcy filings. it’s free — is to invest time in this valu- Center having the ability to
elor’s degrees that cost no more ogy, dwindling budgets, and am- In fact, more people will file for bank- able information source: www.smart- snoop through all of my per-
than $10,000, including text- bitious politicians will not change ruptcy than will graduate from college. edgebygmac.com. sonal messages on Facebook
books.” If he hadn’t fumbled this my experience. It is my hope The No. 1 reason for divorce is money, — or worse yet, pretend to
sentence with the verbal grace these factors do little to change and the No. 1 reason kids drop out of col- — Amy Degnan is a senior public re- be me — honestly terrifies
reminiscent of another Texas those of my future employees. lege in the U.S. is money. We spend bil- lations student participating with the me, as I’m sure it would most
Governor, I’d have thought he just lions on formal education, but we spend university’s National Bateman case study students. Our generation
launched his stand-up comedy — Chip Wozniak is an relatively small amounts of time, money competition team doesn’t think twice before
career. (Tough crowd, though. No advertising senior and energy educating people on the ba- sharing deeply private infor-
mation over Facebook, and if
the wrong person got a hold
of any of that information the

what do
results could be life-ruining.
To prevent this from hap-
pening, anyone and everyone

?
using wireless Internet on

YOU think campus needs to learn how


to use the encrypted WPA, or
Wi-Fi Protected Access, net-
work by visiting the “Wireless

64% D
Overview” webpage on the
university website.
Becoming aware of the
Which Wi-Fi network do you problem and learning how to
use the encrypted network
use on campus? will help, but it is not enough.
The risks of using the unen-
crypted network need to be
made clearer. A simple flier
campaign around campus
could alert users to the dan-
gers of Firesheep. Or even
better, university officials
should send out yet another
18% 18% campus-wide e-mail to get
the word out. Granted, most
students probably don’t read
98 percent of the university
e-mails flooding their inboxes
every day, but it would be a
TexasStateUniversity TexasStateWPA I don’t use Wi-Fi start until the IT Department
can implement or secure
NEXT WEEK’S QUESTION: more of the wireless network
across campus.
What type of financial aid do you receive?
— Caitlin Clark is a
pre-mass communication
D
Vote online at UniversityStar.com freshman

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