Trojans almost unaffected by student loan cuts
By Jamie Mohn
Staff Writer
Students in private universities and colleges will be relatively unaffected by the cuts in the Federal Guaranteed Student Loan Program, which President Reagan signed into law this month, according to student aid experts.
The law will allow some families with incomes above $100,000 a year and with more than one child in a private university to continue to be eligible for the federally subsidized loans at nine percent interest. However, students attending public institutions whose families earn $30,000 to $45,000 a year will suffer from these new restrictions. These changes become fully effective October 1.
Presently students may borrow money through the program without showing any financial need. Reagan's law will exempt all students who cannot display need.
It is estimated that appoximately one-third of the three million current borrowers will be ineligible. Patricia Smith, a policy analyst for the American Council on Education, estimated the 800,000 to 1 million stu-
Aid to continue for many
dents who already had loans would be ineligible under the new loans. Before, any graduate or undergraduate student was eligible to borrow as much as $2,500 without showing need.
‘‘A record 3.6 million students are expected to have borrowed a total of $7.8 billion under the old rules for this school year. Subsidizing these loans will cost the Federal Government an estimated $2.8 billion. This is nearly six times what the subsidy was in 1978 when Congress opened the program to all students,” according to a spokesman for the Department of Education.
Students from families with larger incomes are still eligible if they can show a “demonstrated need.” This is calculated by subtracting other forms of assistance and the families expected contribution from the cost of the particular institution. Students who have received help from their campus financial aid office are required to use the college’s method of calculating need.
Most financial aid experts agree that the bulk of fu-
ture borrowers who will become ineligible will be students in public institutions who come from families in the $30,000 to $45,000 annual income range, just above the new cutoff.
Students in public institutions are affected more than those in private ones because the amount of the loan for which the student is eligible is based in part on the tuition.
“Most people in the private schools will still be eligible,” Smith said.
For example, a family of four with one student in college and an adjusted gross income of $31,000 would be expected to contribute $2,690 to that child’s education. The average cost of a year at a public instituition is now $3,870. If a student had no scholarship or other aid he would be eligible to borrow $1,180.
On the other hand, if the same child were in a private institution where it had been listed that the average cost of the coming year would be $6,885, then he or she would be eligible for the maximum of $2,500.
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Volume XCI Number 3
trojan
University of Southern California
Wednesday, September 2, 1981
University tuition rate near national average
Photo by Rob Potter
EARLY START - Student begins studying during lunchtime break on the first day of classes. The Alumni Park lawn provides a quiet setting for relaxing, away from the long lines of registration, drop-add, and the bookstore.
By Ronald Grainik
Staff Writer
University tuition and fees are lower than the average figure computed by the College Board for a private, four-year university, but the total estimated budget per student calculated by the university and the Board are comparatively similar.
The Board’s findings, which were released Sunday, showed that an independent college’s tuition and fees will average $6,885 for 1981-82, a 13 percent increase over last year. A student's total expenditures, including tuition, room and board, and miscellaneous expenses at these schools, could reach $12,000.
This university’s tuition and fees for the current year are $6,300, a 15 percent increase from 1980-81. The student’s entire projected school cost through June could reach
A study conducted by researchers from the USC Medical Center has determined that phencyclidine — PCP or angel dust — is possibly being used in epidemic proportions.
Using a new and more sensitive technique to detect the drug, researchers have found its use to be more widespread than previously believed.
Dr. Ferris Pitts and six assistant researchers took blood tests from patients entering the Los Angeles County Psychiatric Hospital emergency room during several 48-hour periods. They found that almost half the patients had traces of PCP in their bloodstream.
“Not all psychiatric hospitals will find that nearly half of their emergency room patients will be intoxicated with phencyclidine. Some will find more, some less, but all will find more than they expect,” Pitts said in a report published in the
Epidemic PCP use shown
Journal of Clinicl Psychiatry.
"It’s becoming increasingly evident that there’s a nationwide urban epidemic of PCP abuse and that this abuse causes acute toxic psychosis in a significant number of users.”
be picked up by the new technique.
The detector is far more sensitive than the standard test which uses urine samples. The new test can use not only blood samples but also urine, saliva, and even cerebrospinal fluid samples.
and only 16 of these proved positive for PCP with the standard test.
"Our psychiatric patients usually get to the emergency room one to seven days after they take the stuff,” Pitts said. “By then it is too late to get positive results with
‘Not all psychiatric hospitals will find that nearly half of their emergency room patients will be intoxicated with phencyclidine. Some will find more, some less, but all will find more than they expect’
The new recognition of •this problem stems from previous patients not being correctly diagnosed. Pitts and his assistants used a new detecting technique to locate the nitrogen atom in the PCP molecule.
The drug concentration, which would go undetected using the standard test, can
Analyses of 145 consecutive patients coming into the psychiatric hospital’s emergency room showed 63 positive for PCP using the new test, while the standard test showed only 14 of the samples positive.
Another sampling of 135 patients showed 106 to have PCP in their bloodstream.
the standard test.”
PCP intoxication may take the appearance of several disorders. It can look like a brain tumor or nearly any type of neurological complication. Diagnosis is difficult because symptoms change from individual to individual.
Sampling done at the Los
$12,400, depending on his or her residency and parental support status.
These amounts are significant jumps from the tuition and estimated living costs of five years ago. Tuition and fees for 1976-77 totaled $3,626 at $118 a unit, virtually half the 1981 figures.
Housing costs, using Bimk-rant Hall as an example, rose $386 since 1976, a 61.3 percent hike. Meanwhile, USC Food Service’s 20-meal plan went up $700, a 65 percent jump.
Since 1978, expected living costs for various undergraduate housing groups also rose markedly.
Room and board for dependent on-campus residents increased 40 percent, and transportation costs for dependent commuters almost doubled. An independent student’s anticipated housing bills have stead-(Continued on page 10)
Angeles CountyUSC Women’s Hospital found that out of 400 newborn babies, 15 percent contained traces of PCP.
Although the drug leaves the bloodstream in a matter of hours, it is retained in the body for extended lengths of time and will accumulate after repeated use.
PCP is a lipophilic drug (attracted to fatty tissue), and is especially attracted to the tissue around the brain. Users of the drug may experience flashbacks caused when some of the drug seeps out from the tissue.
The effect of PCP storage in the body was revealed to Pitts when a three-year-old boy was brought to him by a welfare agent. The boy was suffering from delayed development and was paral-ized throughout half of his body.
Pitts learned that the (Continued on page 14)