By: Isaac Lund

In one of America’s most heated debates right now, a definitive answer hasn’t been easy to come by. The price of college education, and whether tuition should disappear altogether, is an ongoing discussion amongst legislators.

Opposition to this idea is steadfast in its beliefs, and this conservatism doesn’t come without solid reasoning. Those against free college say that it will decrease effort and completion rates among students. With current tuition being so high, students need to put in effort to receive scholarships and then continue their hard work through college so as to not waste their time and money. With tuition being entirely free, and thus free retakes of any course, pressure to perform will go down, and overall effort will as well.

Another downside of free college is that, unavoidably, taxing will increase. Public education is paid for mainly by property taxes, meaning all property owners — including those without college-age kids, those who already paid a complete tuition before reform, and even those who never have and never will obtain a college education — will shoulder the burden of this “free college” system.

Additionally, free college would likely cause a drastic decrease in skilled workers coming from trade and vocational schools.

Looking past these roadblocks in the free college system, there continues to be myriad reasons for the plan to be a progressive step in American society. Obviously, free college would increase overall enrollment throughout the nation. Also, it would help mitigate race and class inequalities that ravage the paid education system today.

A more specific example of the free college plan’s success was the Degree Project: a demonstration program started by Douglas Harris, in 2009, that offered half a district’s worth of incoming Milwaukee high school freshman 12,000 dollars of college tuition, given they graduated high school. Using anonymous data collection, these students were tracked throughout their college careers.

The study found that among students who met the requirements, there was a 25% increase in 2-year degrees. This is all the more telling because the money supplied was only enough to reduce a 4-year tuition, while it completely covered 2 years worth; this increase in 2 year degrees showed that free college was more attractive than even price-reduced tuition.

So, what’s the right decision? Do we vie for immense collegiate reform or do we stick with the system put in place long before our time, even with its faults? Even if the answer was clear, action is never so easy—especially with the abysmally slow decision-making evident in our bipartisanship.

By: Mohamed Ahmed

Hello this is an article about my experiences in Ramadan and what I do every year. This is not an article about Ramadan, explaining what you could do, it is more of an experience article.  

Starting off, I have reached the age where it is mandatory to fast. That age differs per person but when you reach 14 years and 8 months of age you must start to fast. I will be starting earlier than that though. 

When I was younger, I would see my parents, cousins, and older siblings all fast. The effect this had on me was that I wanted to fast as well. So, when I started fasting I only did a half day, like 7 or so hours, then I would break my fast. 

When I was in fifth grade I would fast the whole day and the whole month. 

In the morning, typically from 3AM to 5AM, I would wake up and eat until prayer. After doing so, I would return to sleep but some people go to the Mosque to pray and there is a quote from the Prophet saying the time after morning prayer is a great time to read the Quran. 

When I wake up for the second time, I would go to school and then go to work. 

The no water, or eating, continues until the sun sets, then you can break your fast. At the table there is normally too much food and a lot of cultural delicacies. 

After this, there is another prayer that is one of the five mandatory prayers, but after this, there is an optional but highly recommended prayer. This prayer goes on until 12:30AM, or so, then everyone returns home. 

In the last ten days (the day is random), there is an opportunity for complete repentance, but this is if after sundown you participate in all the prayers beforehand and leave after the following sunset.

So, over the day of the fifth, of the Cinco de Mayo of May, I celebrated my Latina heritage by going to get Bill Gates’s purple flurp injected into my arm. That’s right, I had the big ol’ 2nd vaccine. It was, the Pzifer or however you spell it, but nonetheless, I managed to get it finally, and now I’ll never have to wear and mask, and can slurp vomit off the sidewalk if I do feel so inclined.

But honestly, I can’t imagine being one of those people who say that vaccines are filled with baby eyeballs or whatever and it’ll make you Animorph into a starfish, or something like that, because I really am the dictionary definition of a “hypochondriac”.

Which, according to the Oxford dictionary is: “A person who is abnormally anxious about their health”, and I couldn’t describe it better myself. I’m hearing about this virus that’s collapsing people’s lungs like a fourth grader sucking the juice outta a Capri Sun pouch out here, and honestly, I don’t care if there’s snail urine in that thing, I am getting that shot one way or another.

So, anyway, I’m at El Wallgreens as the Spanish say, waiting in line to get my 2nd shot, observing all the new mystical types of beef jerky on the shelves, and they finally call my name, and I finally get my shot. I try to make conversation with the person by making the same 3 jokes they’ve probably heard 87 times in the last hour, and I was on my lil way.

Afterwards, I went to a lil family owned mom and pop shop known as Chick-Fil-A, even though I know the evil corporation is gonna get an extra $0.003 from the restaurant tax, I still couldn’t help myself.

But honestly, after the whole ordeal, I was feeling pretty good that I was one step closer to finally being able to go out to all the crazy high school parties I would always go to before this, because you know how much of a social person I am. But yeah, everything was perfectly fine just like after the first shot.

Until like 3am when I woke up feeling like someone just landed a plane on my bronchi. I mean like my whole upper body just felt like a wet sponge that somebody was slapping against a corner of a wall (that being the best way I could describe it). Honestly, it was like every time I’ve ever been sick with like a flu or anything, just all simultaneously came back to kick me in my cardiac notches.

So, I did the usual standard practice of writhing in pain while laying down trying to fall back asleep to no avail until about 1:30pm when I finally decided to go into the kitchen and make myself a massive pot of rice and beans while drinking 37 Tom Brady style glasses of water throughout the day.

Anyway, I was slowly chowing down on that bowl of rice and beans for about five hours straight, because honestly, lifting up the spoon was enough of a workout as is, and I just sorta felt like, the peak of when you’re about to throw up, but for the entire day. Just like the worst feeling you get the moment right before you’re about to throw up, but haven’t yet, and while usually that lasts about, I dunno, 8 seconds, but for me it lasted about a full day.

So, that was pretty great.

And with me being a hypochondriac, for a second I almost was like, “Aye wait, are those anti-vaxxers right? Am I now on Bill Gates’s tracking app so he can come into my house any time he wants and eat Trolli gummy worms on my couch while catching up on new episodes of ‘Brickleberry’”?

But after that long arduous day of eating from the same bowl of rice and beans, and drinking my elephant suitable water supply, I woke up next morning with a lil’ headache, and by the day after that I was perfectly fine again, but now having this shot in my immune system.

So, that was like what, a day and a half of feeling like this? Honestly, if I wouldn’t have had this vaccine, instead I’d eventually have that virus, and feel this way for about whatever many days right? So, if I just had to take one day of that versus like, a month or whatever for symptoms to subside, like honestly I’d be the first one in line to take every vaccine they grind outta the vaccine kitchen.

So yeah, if you take anything from this article it’s that PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING GET VACCINATED. DOCTORS KNOW MORE ABOUT MEDICINE THAN A GUY ON REDDIT WHO STILL THINKS TRUMP CAN WIN IF THEY RECOUNT ARIZONA FOR THE 73RD TIME. PLEASE JUST GET YOUR SHOTS AND LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHO WENT TO COLLEGE THANK YOU.