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Some UO students have sweet rides. Others collect bottles.

Last updated on 02/23/2014

Update: This story is now expanded into a front page must-read. Cars, parties, fashion. It’s true, Diane Dietz has the story. I hear a little snark about it down at the faculty club car wash, but our main concern is that when the big one hits and PLC topples over, UO will have to pay $20M in damages for the cars parked on Kincaid. Fortunately VPFA Jamie Moffitt is piling up the reserves to cover just this sort of eventuality.

And as a commenter notes, the same edition of the RG has a story on an Oregon student who is paying for school by collecting bottles:

The youngest of four children, Lilly comes from a blue collar family. She couldn’t rely on rich parents to pay for college.

“I’m responsible for any school expenses,” she said.

Lilly plans to attend medical school and become a doctor. She started doing bottle drives while she was a junior at Harrisburg High School.

11 Comments

  1. dog 02/22/2014

    now if we can just get them to pay directly for their degrees,
    everyone would be happy …

    • Nathan 02/25/2014

      There is in fact a serious issue here. There are very wealthy students here, and some are paying to have original papers written for them–sometimes several hundred dollars per paper. The papers are not plagiarized so it is next to impossible to establish the offense and take a student through a conduct process–and yet it is obvious that the paper is written at a level of fluency that would be impossible for the student.

      • dog 02/25/2014

        this practice is not limited to that group – I have plenty of examples from the student-athlete side that show the same behavior.

        • Nathan 02/25/2014

          So is there a practicable solution? Have you found one? I have challenged some students to their faces, and they have insisted that they wrote the paper themselves, perhaps that they also had a tutor read it over and give them advice.

          Is there an existing process that can provide some justice here? If necessary, the same wealth that bought the paper could buy legal representation, too. I certainly wouldn’t want to waste time in a futile effort.

          • dog 02/25/2014

            I don’t know if there is a large scale solution – this problem has been around for at least 1000 years.

            In limited doses I do the following and basically give
            the student 30 minutes to write a two paragraph blog
            style article on something – this can be done in class
            or outside of class – at least it eliminates the time it takes
            for the student to find someone to pay to do this for them

            It all comes down to what you choose as a means of principle assessment for your class.

  2. wow 02/22/2014

    Just goes to show we should increase tuition more but then have general financial aid to price discriminate better.

    • anonec 02/23/2014

      Parking fees based on vehicle weight and/or engine size and selling the increases as “green/sustainable” policies… or open a gas station in the PLC parking lot. Or valet parking?

      • uomatters Post author | 02/23/2014

        Valet parking service for office hours and help sessions. Love it.

  3. RG Reader 02/23/2014

    How very sad that another section of the RG has a large feature story of a local student and her family collecting bottles and cans to finance at least part of her education at OSU.

    • awesome0 02/23/2014

      Why? Rich foreign students should mean more financial aid for local students? Shouldn’t it.

    • uomatters Post author | 02/23/2014

      Thanks for that, updated.

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