cl bic 1IRtc t a 1441F 43 at It! Ninety-six years of editorialfreedom Vol. XCVI - No. 85 Copyright 1986, The Michigan Daily Ann Arbor, Michigan - Thursday, January 30, 1986 Ten Pages V Gov. for t asks nition program By KERY MURAKAMI with wire reports Gov. James Blanchard unveiled a program last night, which could help guarantee Michigan residents an af- fordable college education in the state. Speaking before a live television audience, Blanchard, in a preview to his State of the State address tonight, also stressed the state's financial solvency and a proposal to crack down on drunk driving. UNDER THE tuition guarantee program, which must be approved by the legislature before it can go into ef- fect, parents would pay the state a certain amount of money in return for a full tuition waiver once their child enrolls in a Michigan public college or university. The state in turn would invest the payments, which are expected to bring in more than enough returns to cover increases in tuition. "This program will guarantee to pay a child's tuition, whatever the cost might be by the time the child enters college," Blanchard said about the plan. Michigan students not involved in the program would still be subject to tuition increases. "Nothing could be more important than guaranteeing a college education for our kids," Blanchard said in the speech last night, "and when added to our expanded scholarship and loan programs, this tuition guarantee will make Michigan the nation's leader in providing access to opportunity." SIMILAR PROGRAMS exist at several colleges, including Dar- Daily Photo by ANDI SCHREIBER Bus, stop! A University bus speeds by barriers on North Campus yesterday. 'U' SCIENTISTS ASSESS SETBACKS: & Explosion delays space research Blanchard ... previews statewide address tmouth and Duquesne, but no other state has tried the idea. How much the parents pay depends on how close their child is to college age, said Lynn Schaffer, the state's associate budget director. For example, parents of a child born this year would pay $3,755, either, in one lump sum or in monthly or bi- weekly payments. PARENTS OF a 15-year-old child would pay $6,724, Schaffer said, and parents of older children would pay more because their investment will have less time to earn interest before their child is ready for college. See BLANCHARD, Page 3 By NEIL CHASE and STEPHEN GREGORY University professors involved in research related to the space shuttle program said yesterday their work will be delayed but not cancelled while officials investigate the causes f the Challenger's explosion -Tuesday. Although a plan to observe Halley's Comet from a shuttle in March has been scrapped due to the in- vestigation, other projects - such as a probe to Jupiter and experiments to determine the causes of space sickness - will be conducted when the shuttle flights resume. Most researchers predicted the shuttle program will be on hold for at %least six months, and Halley's Comet, which appears near the Earth once every 76 years, will be long gone by then. Prof. Thomas Cravens, a Univer- sity research scientist, said that "the lack of comet data is probably the most serious immediate loss, because Halley's Comet will be here in March and that's it." Cravens had planned to use the information the shuttle would have collected for his own research. "IT'S TOO late to pull back from that program, so it's got to continue, Cravens said. "The shuttle program can't be cancelled." The University's space research budget for this year is approximately $6.5 million, with two-thirds provided by NASA, according to Paul Hays, director of space research projects at the University. The rest comes from NASA searches for cause of explosion the National Science Foundation and other sponsors. PROF. GEORGE Carignan, a research engineer, developed a device to study the atmosphere around Jupiter as part of the Galileo space probe. The probe, which is to carry six ex- periments into Jupiter's atmosphere, was scheduled for launch in late May or early June. Now, however, it ap- pears the probe will be delayed at least 13 months because there are limited opportunities to launch the probe based on the Earth's position in relation to Jupiter. The University's part of the project is a $2 million mass spectrometer, which will study the gases in Jupiter's atmosphere. Nine months after the probe is launched, it will enter the atmosphere are Jupiter, transmit data for an hour, and then be destroyed by the intense heat and pressure around the planet. The data See SHUTTLE, Page 5 EPA links passive smoke to cancer From AP and UPI While Americans watched countless reruns of the shuttle explosion and NASA began an investigation into its cause, rocket experts outside the space agency groped for possible ex- planations of the tragedy. A leak or a crack in one of the shut- tle's twin solid rockets was a possibility. Or a rupture in the shut- tle's liquid fuel tank, a huge pressurized canister brimming with a half-million gallons of liquid hydrogen and ogygen. SOME engineers speculated that metal fragments may have splintered off the giant turbines, or pumps, that See NATION, Page 5 WASHINGTON (AP) - It's time to stop dismissing non-smokers as "finicky busybodies" when they complain about inhaling other people's smoke, a government health-safety official said yester- day. John Topping Jr., staff director of the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Air and Radiation, said evidence linking "passive smoke" to disease, though fragmentary, "seems suf- ficient to warrant strong steps to cut down involuntary exposure to cigarette smoke." HE SAID his own agency was not proposing cigarette-smoke regulations. But he spoke ap- provingly of scattered cities such as See PASSIVE, Page 5 Housing crunch Off-campus housing causes student panic S. By EVE BECKER An engineering sophomore and his three friends in South Quad are willing to pay just about any price to live in a modern, furnished apartment next fall. They toured about 50 apartments before finding one that met their standards and then offered the y tenant an extra $200 to get the lease-only to discover later that they had been outbid. registered .79 percent last September - the lowest rate in the last few years. This year's apartment hunters seem to fear that the situation could wor- sen, although there's no way to tell at this point, says Sherie Veramay of the Housing Information Office. "There are a lot of people out there looking for a house," says LSA freshman Eun-kyu Koh, who recently began hunting for a house. "A lease has already been signed for the house we were in- terested in. Some are going pretty fast." FEW STUDENTS actually have signed leases, although many have hurried to place bids - despite a predicted rise in rent. Doug Milkey of Campus Rentals is just one realtor who expects his rates to jump between 7 and 9 percent over last year's. Although students "are begging for places," Ed Gottschalk of Post Realty says the demand isn't driving up rental prices so much as are insurance rates. "Everybody's insurance has doubled and tripled," he says. "A lot of insurance companies aren't even insuring (student-occupied) buildings because they're getting so many claims from students." SINCE 1983, rental rates in Ann Arbor have risen an average of 20 to 30 percent, says Jeff Ditz of the Ann Arbor Tenants Union. The University's housing office reports that current renters are paying, on average: $329 per month for an efficiency, 28.5 percent more than in 1983-84; $364 per month for one-bedroom apar- tments, a 23.8 percent increase over the same See SEARCH, Page 3 a L. a J1 -o V -t a. v a9 .0 The students call the competition for the best housing a black market. Housing officials and landlords call his experience part of an unusually early panic over the perceived shortage of rental housing for next fall. According to a survey from the University's Housing Information Office of 20 local realty com- panies, the vacancy rate of rental housing TODAY Star games D OYOU DREAM of space-based laser defense satellites? Is it your fantasy to build this ultimate strategic defense shield? If so, you can satisfy this urge by entering the create seem difficult for students to create their own working model of a 'Star Wars' system, CASW feels that studen- ts should be inspired by the work of those scientists who are spending their lives working on a system that won't work. Also, students must remember that no matter how crazy their idea seems, it's not as crazy as those in Washington," the group says. The designers of the three mnt creative nrnnnzik will win a Schoolkids the number of judges at boxing matches from two to three. 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