The Michigan Daily - Sunday, July 8, 1984 - Page 7 Grad. schools seek higher loan ceiling WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's graduate schools asked the Reagan administration yesterday to increase the ceiling on federally guaranteed student loans from $5,000 to $8,000 a year to close a tuition gap they said could knock students out of high-priced professional programs. With tuitions rising 14 percent a year in some schools, students will be priced out of the market for law, medical, den- tal, veterinary and other graduate degrees without opportunities to borrow more money, school associations said in a petition to Education Secretary Terrel Bell. THE GROUPS said they were "con- cerned with the widening gap that has developed as maximum loans available to students under various federally sponsored programs have failed to keep pace with the escalating cost of education." In 1976, the federal government in- creased the ceiling on guaranteed students loans from $2,500 to $5,000 a year and seta total loan limit of $25,000 per student. The education secretary also was given the power to increase the limits for especially costly courses of study. In their petition, the associations asked Bell to exercise the authority and increase the annual ceiling to $8,000 for schools with yearly tuition coasts of $5,000 or more. They also requested a cumulative loan limit of $37,000. THE COST of the increase, which the groups estimated would be $17.9 million a year, "would appear modest when compared with the very significant benefit it would produce in addressing professional and graduate student financial needs," the petition said. Among the groups making the plea were the Association of American Law Schools and the Council of Graduate Schools. Delegates young and old CAROL L. FRANCAVILLA/Daily Guiding light An unidentified woman walks past a smiling lamp in front of the Union yesterday. " Death toll expected to rise in Vt. train derailment (Continued from Page 1) injured from the remote site. An estimated 300 rescue workers removed the passengers, many on stretchers, af- ter passing them through train win- dows. "THIS IS the most serious accident I can recall in 30 years here," said Gov. Richard Snelling, who was at the scene within an hour of the crash and remained there much of the day. "It's pretty gruesome . . . I want to see all of the people out," Snelling said. About 82 people were taken to the Medical Center Hospital in Burlington; 57 others were taken to the Fanny Allen Hospital in Colchester. Most people were treated and released. ANOTHER 140 people with slight in- juries or no injuries were taken by bus to the Williston Armory. "We have never had anything of this magnitude," said Beverly Rutherford, a spokeswoman at the Medical Center. Nine of the 13 cars on the northbound Montrealer derailed when the train ap- parently hit a section of track over a culvert that had been washed out by overnight flooding, according to state police and civil defense officials. One car was completely crushed when it tumbled into the streambed and two more cars landed on top of it. THE TRAIN had been en route from Washington to Montreal. It was the first fatal Amtrak accident this year. Most of the passengers were asleep when the train buckled. "First there was a jerk; then a bang, then a big bang," said Coles. "WE WERE out in nowhere," said Charles O'Connor, a passenger from Arlington, Va. "Most of us were sleeping; I was half asleep, and all of the cars started to shift. The sleeping cars were hit the worst; they were up front." The accident occurred along the Winooski River, a few miles east of Burlington, in muddy, hilly terrain. prepare or WASHINGTON (AP) - Benjamin Osborne was 67 when David Agnew was born. That was 18 years ago. Next week, both will be in San Francisco as delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Agnew, who just graduated from high school, is a Gary Hart delegate from Anderson, S.C. The 85-year-old Osborne, a chiropractor in his fifth term as the elected trustee of Center Township, Ind., will be casting his ballot for Walter Mondale. THEY APPEAR to be the oldest and the youngest people who will vote at the convention, where the average delegate will be 46 years old, according to an AP survey of 85 percent of the delegates. AP correspondents in all 50 states asked delegates about their choices for president and vice president, as well as their biographical information. Some 202 delegates refused to divulge their age. A total of 711 reported belonging to a union, with the largest single group in the National Education Association, which has fielded the biggest con- tingents at the past two Democratic conventions as well. THE NEA SAYS it expects 270 of its members to be delegates in San Fran- ciso. The AFL-CIO says its member convention unions will send approximately 573 delegates to the convention. Democratic National Chairman Charles Manatt has boasted that this year's convention will have "by far the most minority delegates we've ever had .. . We reflect our party and our party reflects America." Overall, the party says there will be 690 black delegates, or 17.5 percent; 254 Hispanic, or 6.4 percent; 73 Asians and Pacific Islanders, or 1.9 percent; and 35 Native American, or 0.9 percent. OSBORNE, WHO was born Nov. 15, 1898, in what was then British Guyana, emigrated to the United States in 1919 and became a citizen in the mid-1920s. He was first a delegate at the 1980 Democratic convention and says "I was the oldest one then, too." There is another 85-year-old Mondale delegate, Francis Burke, a lawyer from Pikeville. Ky., who was born March 12, 1899. Burke, a former state senator, is going to his fifth convention. Hart, who campaigned as the can- didate of a new generation, counts several teen-agers among his 1,245 delegates, including Agnew and two other 18-year-olds, Karin Schutjer, a Yale student from Mansfield, Ohio, and John Littig of Rock Island, Ill., a student at August Stanley College. Both Schutjer and Littig will be 19 this fall. Local cable company begins piracy crackdown (Continued from Page 1? equipment in a mobile community like Ann Arbor, with people moving in and out all the time," she said. BUT SOME Ann Arbor residents who subscribe to Cablevision's basic service receive additional chan- nels because of a flaw in their consoles. "In this particular box," reported one customer who wished to remain anonymous, "if you press two buttons at the same time, you get HBO or the Playboy Channel." This "pirate" said he does not consider the console manipulation an act of theft. "I FIGURED it's their mistake," he said. "If they want to change the box, they can come and get it." Wilson said Cablevision intends to do just that. "We have a list of all the homes those boxes went to, and we're in the process of knocking on doors and replacing them." The company will also recall consoles from customers who can intercept services they don't pay for simply by switching channels on their TV sets. WILSON expressed frustration over the popular view of cable piracy. "It's what we used to call 'cocktail chic,' where you go to a party and tell people how you're stealing cable," she said. "We'd like to get it out of that realm." Cable piracy is punishable under the same statutes which cover theft of utility service. The maximum penalty for "making or maintaining an illegal cable connection" is one year in prison and a $500 fine, which applies to each illegal connection in the case of a multiple violation. TO DATE, Cablevision has not brought charges against anyone for cable theft. According to Wilson, "new technologies" will enable the company to check the strength of its signal at a given location in order to determine whether or not an illegal hook-up is in use. As part of the campaign, Wilson said, Cablevision is reminding its customers that "the revenue we lose, other subscribers have to make up for, and sometimes people tapping in disturb the signal playing customers receive." Although this campaign represents Cablevision's most serious attempt in its 12-year history to deal with cable piracy, Wilson said she doubts that the com- pany can completely eliminate the problem. "This will help, but it's an ongoing thing," she said. "No matter what you come up with, there's always someone who's going to try to figure out a way to get around it."