| Summary: | November 20, 2014 • theconcordian.org 3 WIN MILES from FARGO to DALLAS Tell us what big event you’d attend in the Big D. Enter to win at facebook.com/fargoairport Contact your travel agent for details. www.fargoairport.com BY ANNA ERICKSON aerick14@cord.edu In years past, Thanks-giving Break has been Thursday through Sunday but this year students can look forward to having the Wednesday before Thanks-giving off as well. Ericka Peterson, a Con-cordia registrar and sched-uler, thinks many students will benefit from the extra day, which will allow them more travel time. “The three day Thanks-giving Break was a con-scious decision because students were cutting class and leaving early because they wanted to get home safely,” Peterson said. “Student safety is defi-nitely a concern. You can never guarantee the weath-er around here.” Sophomore Jade Hasel-tine said, she noticed in her freshman year that over half of the people in her classes were gone the day before break. “The extra day is nice for people who live farther away to have that day for travel,” Haseltine said. Haseltine, who lives about four hours away sup-ports the extra day: more time with family and more time to traverse potentially bad weather. Peterson said another reason for this change was simply because there was room for the ex-tra day to be added. Concor-dia re-quires a certain n u m - ber of vclass days for students and professors to meet; breaks are deter-mined by this quota. Each semester, Monday, Wednes-day, Friday classes must meet for a minimum of 42 sessions. Tuesday, Thurs-day classes must meet for at least 28 sessions. When there are extra days to schedule, breaks can be longer. It all depends on what dates the breaks fall on each year. Along with this, classes need to be held for a cer-tain number of weeks as well. When Peterson lays out the year’s schedule, she must consider weeks con-sisting of less than 5 days. Weeks of even 2 class days, such as the first week of the year, still count as full weeks. “I just have to p l a y w i t h t h e numbers and figure out how to lay the schedule out,” Peterson said. This year, because of the extra days in the schedule, students were also able to enjoy an extra day of Fall break as well. Last year, there was a study day at the end of Fall semester for the same reason and 2 years ago Christmas break was significantly longer than usual. Each year looks a little different. Likewise, Concordia tries to remain open on cer-tain dates such as MEA and NDEA, a time for prospec-tive students to see Cobbers in action.“I think it’s smart of them to schedule breaks different so high school students don’t have to take off school in order to get a better feel for campus and what it is like when people are there,” Haseltine said. Each year’s schedule must appease Concordia’s board of administrators, which has the final say. Generally, the same patterns are followed for breaks. School always starts the Thursday before Labor Day and ends before the first Sunday of May. As of now calendars are approved through the 2016- 2017 year. Unless changes to the academic calendar occur, these calendars will stay in effect. Usually, Concordia plans calendars three years in advance. Calendar change could also lead to a longer fall break. “There are conversa-tions about adding a lon-ger break in the fall like in the spring,” Peterson said. “Potentially, the calendar could look different in the future but this idea is still just being discussed,” Pe-terson said. Why the longer breaks this year? BY SAGE LARSON slarso18@cord.edu On November 20 and 21, the COBBikes will be stored away for the winter. Rest assured, they will re-turn in the spring. The bikes will be stored in the restrooms in Jake Christiansen Stadium with other students’ bikes will be stored during the win-ter. Dr. Kenneth W. Foster, political science profes-sor and program Director of Global Studies, said the bikes won’t be used often, and should be put away. Also, due to the harsh win-ter conditions, the bikes will maintain their qual-ity longer by storing them away in the winter. Sophomore Jessica Mooberry, an avid user of the COBBikes, agreed with the storage of the bikes. “It’s dangerous riding a bike during the winter,” Mooberry said. “It’s super icy and the bikes aren’t built for winter conditions, they’re keeping people safe by putting the bikes away.” The bikes will be back. “They will be put out in the spring when the weather looks good enough to do this,” said Foster. “Prob-ably sometime in March.” Based on the bikes’ wild popularity, they will re-turn better than ever. The rack for the COBBikes will have a new shelter and a Fix-It station will be in-stalled, where students can have access to tools and an air pump maintain their bikes. Facilities Manage-ment will be working on this during the winter. “It will look great,” Fos-ter said, though he can’t provide much informa-tion on the still developing plans. The bike program will continue into the summer for students that will be on campus because of sum-mer classes and for the in-ternational students that arrive in July and August. Snowflakes fly; wave CobBikes goodbye WASHINGTON (AP) — Time to stock up on the ra-men noodles. The average cost of attending college crept up again this year, the College Board said Thurs-day. The average sticker price, with room and board included, for undergradu-ate students attending a four-year college or uni-versity in their home state was $18,943. Out-of-state students at those schools paid, on average, $32,762. At two-year public schools, in-state students paid an aver-age $11,052. The cost to attend a pri-vate, four-year nonprofit college: $42,419, on aver-age, including housing and meal plan. For-profit schools cost about $15,230, but housing figures weren’t available Books and transporta-tion costs can add more than $2,000 to the cost of attending college, and that rises even more for com-muters. The highest rate of in-crease of 3.7 percent was among private, nonprofit colleges. And even though the increases across higher education outpaced infla-tion, the rates of increase were lower than those stu-dents saw five, 10 or 30 years ago, the College Board said. When adjusted for infla-tion, students are paying more than triple what stu-dents paid 30 years ago to attend a public, four-year institution and about 2.5 times more to attend a pri-vate nonprofit or two-year public one. “The price increases are actually quite moder-ate this year, but still, what people are paying, and this is before financial aid, is the accumulation of many years of price increases,” said Sandy Baum, a co-au-thor of the nonprofit Col-lege Board’s annual college pricing report. “So, if the price goes up just a little bit this year, people aren’t re-ally going to breathe a sigh of relief because the price is already high from their perspective.” Baum said during tough economic times, college costs tend to go up because public institutions receive less in state dollars and pri-vate ones see a decrease in endowments and in giving. Other contributing factors are wide ranging from the increasing costs of technol-ogy to health insurance for university employees. Only the wealthiest of Americans are seeing their incomes rise, so most stu-dents feel the tuition up-ticks more, Baum said. The number of full--time undergraduate students in-creased by 16 percent in the three years leading up to fall 2010 to 13.7 million, but then declined to 13 million in fall 2013. The number of students taking out stu-dent loans and the amount taken out, on average, by students has been declin-ing, the College Board said. It said about 60 percent of students who earned a bachelor’s degree in 2012- 2013 from public or private, nonprofit schools from which they began their studies graduated with debt, borrowing an average of $27,300. The breakdown in pric-ing: —Sticker prices, on av-erage, for in-state tuition and fees at public four-year schools increased to $9,139 this school year — a 2.9 per-cent increase over the 2013- 2014 school year. The aver-age out-of-state price tag was $22,958, an increase of 3.3 percent increase. Room and board was $9,804. —Public two-year schools had a $3,347 pub-lished price on average for tuition and fees— an in-crease of 3.3 percent. Room and board was $7,705. —Tuition and fees at pri-vate, nonprofit schools rose 3.7 percent to an average of $31,231. Room and board was $11,188. —For-profit schools saw a 1.3 percent increase in tu-ition and fees. Published prices don’t necessarily reflect what students actually pay be-cause they don’t include grant dollars provided by institutions or government aid such as Pell Grants, the GI Bill and tax credits. This school year, full-time students received an aver-age of about $6,110 in aid at public four-year schools, $5,090 at public two-year ones, and $18,870 at private colleges. The average in-state prices at four-year schools ranged from $4,646 in Wyo-ming to $14,712 in New Hampshire. For out-of-state students, the most affordable tuition of $9,910 was in South Da-kota. On the other end, the most expensive was $34,331 in Vermont. College prices continue to creep up Regardless of Concor-dia’s status, Eliason under-stands that balance, and encourages people to use personal judgement. “If it doesn’t make sense to drive in, we’ll sort it out,” Eliason said. In the winter of 2012, four NDSU students died in a car accident while driving in a winter storm. The four girls decided to travel through the storm to get back to NDSU in time for classes the next day. Ever since that tragedy, schools in the area have become more accepting of students unwilling to trav-el for the sake of class. “That was the turning point,” MacDonald said, “We became much more aware of the perils.” Some might claim Con-cordia has a reputation for remaining open despite the status of nearby neigh-bors NDSU and MSUM. “It’s about different in-stitutions with different needs,” Eliason said. According to Concor-dia’s winter storm policy, “the majority of students live either on-campus or relatively near the college off-campus.” That said, larger campuses with a wider spread of residents such as MSUM and NDSU require students and staff to make longer treks through the tundra. English Chair and pro-fessor Jonathan Steinwand usually drives a Toyota Prius to campus. He said he’s had a fair share of “scary” moments, but has only once felt his hybrid wouldn’t make it through the weather. “Concordia thinks peo-ple live close to campus,” Steinwand said, who lives a few miles away from his office. “But I think the demographics are chang-ing.” MSUM Information claimed MSUM’s decision relied heavily on the Moor-head public schools and the NDSU meteorology re-ports. According to NDSU’s annual Severe Weather Report, they consult their own Severe Weather Pro-tocol Crisis Management Response Team to decide what measure must be tak-en towards the safety of students and staff. MacDonald said the colleges stay on the same page via “Bat-Phones,” and share their rationale for cancellations. SNOW DAYS: NDSU and MSUM AJ ECKBERG
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