Spring Break
Column: Hot off the press
The joke's on us
Brenna McCabe
Issue date: 4/2/09 Section: Editorial/Opinion
04/02/09 - As most of you may have realized by now, yesterday's edition of The Good Five-Cent Cigar was the staff's way of celebrating April Fools' Day.
One story in particular, however, seemed to have an effect the staff was not expecting.
Yesterday's article, entitled "Anonymous donor gives funds to campus students," garnered more than 20 phone calls to the Cigar editor's office (the voicemail was changed to the "URI Hotline" as part of the prank.)
In certain messages, it was obvious the student knew the article was fictional and decided to play along, stating reasons why he or she might deserve the money. The Cigar staff would like to thank those who got particularly creative with their voicemails...
And despite the fact that we all got a good chuckle out of the volume of phone calls, some of the messages were a different story.
Many of the students who called expressed the exact same problems: "I have to go to summer school, but my parents were laid off," or "I'm working two jobs right now and I can barely afford to stay in school."
With the exception of the man who "blew all of his money in Cancun during Spring Break" - he shall remain anonymous - the staff came to realize that students are facing some serious problems right now.
Some of us have heard our parents talk about "the old days" when they had to - gasp - walk to school, and perhaps take on an extra job to help pay for tuition. But now more than ever in the worst unemployment rate this state has ever seen, students are having to not only tack on an extra job, but extracurricular activities as well, to eventually compete for "real world jobs," not to mention class studies.
This isn't even the worst-case scenario. There are students who already enter the world of higher education in dire need of financial aid and support from the very beginning. There are students who don't have parents to support them, while others are actually depended upon to support their parents.
It doesn't matter how many times you're bombarded with headlines about the economy or unemployment. It all seems to amount to old men crunching numbers after a while. I don't think it really hit me until I listened to some of those voicemails - students really are suffering from this in a major way.
But who are students to turn to in the economic crisis? Is there really any support out there?
It made me wish, at least today, that someone somewhere really did make that anonymous donation. Well, maybe $100,000 is a little too much to ask ...
One story in particular, however, seemed to have an effect the staff was not expecting.
Yesterday's article, entitled "Anonymous donor gives funds to campus students," garnered more than 20 phone calls to the Cigar editor's office (the voicemail was changed to the "URI Hotline" as part of the prank.)
In certain messages, it was obvious the student knew the article was fictional and decided to play along, stating reasons why he or she might deserve the money. The Cigar staff would like to thank those who got particularly creative with their voicemails...
And despite the fact that we all got a good chuckle out of the volume of phone calls, some of the messages were a different story.
Many of the students who called expressed the exact same problems: "I have to go to summer school, but my parents were laid off," or "I'm working two jobs right now and I can barely afford to stay in school."
With the exception of the man who "blew all of his money in Cancun during Spring Break" - he shall remain anonymous - the staff came to realize that students are facing some serious problems right now.
Some of us have heard our parents talk about "the old days" when they had to - gasp - walk to school, and perhaps take on an extra job to help pay for tuition. But now more than ever in the worst unemployment rate this state has ever seen, students are having to not only tack on an extra job, but extracurricular activities as well, to eventually compete for "real world jobs," not to mention class studies.
This isn't even the worst-case scenario. There are students who already enter the world of higher education in dire need of financial aid and support from the very beginning. There are students who don't have parents to support them, while others are actually depended upon to support their parents.
It doesn't matter how many times you're bombarded with headlines about the economy or unemployment. It all seems to amount to old men crunching numbers after a while. I don't think it really hit me until I listened to some of those voicemails - students really are suffering from this in a major way.
But who are students to turn to in the economic crisis? Is there really any support out there?
It made me wish, at least today, that someone somewhere really did make that anonymous donation. Well, maybe $100,000 is a little too much to ask ...
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