Valid water treaty may protect Montana later
Robert OâNEIL | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 10 years, 9 months AGO
A thought about water negotiations from one who well remembers the proposal to raise Flathead Lake. In not too many years the farmers of California and the Southwest together with the citizens of Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix will be pounding on doors in Washington, D.C., demanding our water.
Our best defense may well be a constitutional treaty provision and a valid Indian treaty. Remember some sayings from the past: “Divide and conquer,” “We’re in this together,” and “Hang together or hang separately.”
O’Neil is a resident of Kalispell
ARTICLES BY ROBERT OÂNEIL
Cost of higher education getting out of reach
According to the Chinese Education Center, the budget for tuition-free higher education in China increased by 45 percent from 2007 to 2011 and has continued a similar pace. Enrollment is over 35 million, up from 9 million in 2001. These are indicators of a culture on the rise. Since 2010, enrollment at the Missoula campus of the University of Montana dropped by 22 percent. In the past 30 years or so in Montana, public funding for the university has gone from over 90 percent to less than 17 percent. The deficit has been largely replaced by tuition, which most students can’t afford, so they can’t attend without incurring about $25,000 in debt. These are indicators of a culture in decline. Our grand parents had a vision of the future. To accomplish it they willingly chose to tax themselves to provide free higher education for the generations to follow them. But in the 1980s something sour and cold entered the hearts and minds of citizens and legislators. They continually reduced public funding for higher education and forced the cost onto the students. The dream of our grandparents and the futures of young people have been betrayed by both the regents and the legislators. This betrayal is nationwide, and is one thing at the heart of our national decline.
Time for the U.S. to put money where its education is
According to the Chinese Education Center Ltd., the budget for tuition-free higher education in China increased by 45 percent from 2007 to 2011 and has continued a similar pace. Enrollment is over 35 million, up from 9 million in 2001. These are indicators of a culture on the rise.
Cost of higher education getting out of reach
According to the Chinese Education Center, the budget for tuition-free higher education in China increased by 45 percent from 2007 to 2011 and has continued a similar pace. Enrollment is over 35 million, up from 9 million in 2001. These are indicators of a culture on the rise. Since 2010, enrollment at the Missoula campus of the University of Montana dropped by 22 percent. In the past 30 years or so in Montana, public funding for the university has gone from over 90 percent to less than 17 percent. The deficit has been largely replaced by tuition, which most students can’t afford, so they can’t attend without incurring about $25,000 in debt. These are indicators of a culture in decline. Our grand parents had a vision of the future. To accomplish it they willingly chose to tax themselves to provide free higher education for the generations to follow them. But in the 1980s something sour and cold entered the hearts and minds of citizens and legislators. They continually reduced public funding for higher education and forced the cost onto the students. The dream of our grandparents and the futures of young people have been betrayed by both the regents and the legislators. This betrayal is nationwide, and is one thing at the heart of our national decline.