Is that a light I see?

Last night I was in class, wondering how we could possibly be going over the industry life cycle AGAIN (honestly, if we haven't learned it yet, it's not going to happen) and I was more amazed at myself for actually taking notes. As if I couldn't tell you the 4 phases of the industry life cycle (which mirrors the product life cycle) are introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. I'm fairly
certain I actually learned that in 10th grade. But there I was, taking notes like a trained monkey. I came to the conclusion that after 4 years they actually have run out of things to teach me. They are now going back to high school to find things to stretch out the semester. I'm a little afraid that next week we will go over the basics of supply and demand. Or worse, start having vocabulary quizzes.

There's some good news on the UMass front. Luckily I am graduating in a little over 2 months and this would not have effected me. But there was a $1500 proposed increase in fees at every Umass campus. UMass is famous for their "fees". They are triple what tuition is, and the fully admit those fees are just to make up the difference between what other colleges charge for tuition and what they charge for tuition. Since they are charging it anyway, why not just call it tuition? All they are doing by categorizing it under "fees" instead of "tuition" is screwing the students that are getting tuition covered by someone (work, loan, grant, etc) but not fees. And then they wanted to increase the fees by $1500. I would have been screwed if I had to pay an extra $4500 a year to UMass (I was there 3 semesters a year). I honestly do not know how I would have paid for it, but as I said - doesn't effect me. However I heard on NPR this morning that all 4 UMass campuses might be seeing some help via Deval Patrick via The Massive Stimulus Package. Patrick is proposing taking $162 million in federal stimulus money to allow
UMass officials to defray the fee increase down to as little as $380. While that's still a lot, it's much more manageable than $1500. In addition, the money will be used to prevent some
faculty layoffs and program cuts (not really sure what program cuts though).

For all the students not graduating in May, I hope this goes through. I also hope the money isn't just handed over to UMass officials, because god knows they have no idea how to efficientlyrun a school system and will probably just build another dorm at the Amherst campus. We'll see - Patrick is unveiling the plan at UMB this afternoon.