OPINION The Michigan Daily Obe Oticbt-an 'ai1V Vol. XCV, No. 38-S, 95 Years of Editorial Freedom Managed and Edited by Students at The University of Michigan Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily Editorial Board Budget rhetoric IF GOV. James Blanchard vetoes part of the higher education budget because certain colleges and universities decide not to freeze tuition this fall, he will be setting a dangerous precedent. The governor's office is justifiabl; angry at tuition in- creases. The University's tuition level is already one of the highest in the nation. Higher tuition levels will only hurt low- and moderate income families. However, the governor's office should not try to coerce the University in this manner. If they feel the University should keep a lid on tuition, then present facts and figures not rhetoric. The facts and figures show that the legislature cut back the amount of money it was giving the University in the 1970s. The state's contribution to the University's operating budget decreased from 60.7 percent in 1975 to 47.5 percent in 1983. The University was forced to postpone several construction projects and increases in faculty salaries. The University's ability to compete with peer in- stitutions was hampered by the lack of state support. The legislature has started to reverse this trend in the last two years. But ten years of neglect will not be offset by two years of prosperity. The University should do everything within its power to keep tuition down. But the University administration can no longer afford to postpone projects or salary increases if it wishes to maintain the quality of the University. Gov. Blanchard is encouraged to soften his budget direc- P tor's threat of a veto for those colleges and universities who can not freeze tuition this fall. No one wants to pay more for college, but the legislators have only themselves to blame for the tuition increases. i xEs kes 2 . .. ..:;Z. :,k. . , .: :..qxo s ,:.:w ..,...., ....:,, , Letters to the Daily should be typed, triple-spaced, and signed by the in- dividual authors. Names will be withheld only in unusual circumstances. Letters may be edited for clarity, grammar, and spelling. Thursday, July 25, 1985 Page 5 Barriers for inner city youth freeway in Walnut Creek office By Louis Freedberg buildings and shopping malls have mushroomed, spawning a plethora of WALNUT CREEK, CA.- One of jobs. Nationally, office construction the real anomalities in the U.S. job has been higher than within the cen- scene is that while inner city youth tral city since 1975. Currently 60 to 65 face permanent unemployment em- percent of all office building is taking ployers in surrounding suburbs are place outside the central city. begging for workers. Job counselors and young people Teenagers crowding into the agree that transportation is a major Chamber of Commerce youth em- obstacle. Oakland's bus system, they ployment office in this white, mostly point out, does not reach into the affluent suburb are having no trouble suburbs, and to get there inner-city finding jobs this summer. As in most teens would have to commit them- such communities across the country, selves to an expensive and time- openings in fast food restaurants, ice consuming combination of public cream parlors, shoe stores are going transportation systems. unfilled. Some older teens say they'd be BUT JUST a few miles away in willing to travel to the suburbs - if Oakland's decaying inner city, the they could be assured of a regular 8- odds are overwhelmingly agaiinst hour-a-day job. But, as they know, young people looking for work. Out of most teen jobs are part-time and 3,500 young people registered at the temporary. Mayor's Summer Jobs Program, at OTHERS ARE convinced they'd be most1,400 willfind jobs. rejected becausesthey're black. "It's as if these are two different "They look at you as if you're dirt," worlds," says economist Tom Larson says Johnny Mitchell-Clark, 19, a 1983 at the University of California at high school graduate who has applied Berkeley. for work in one nearby suburb. "They These two worlds - the first with don't have any black people around its healthy growing economy, the there. They'd think you want to move second with its deteriorating there and mess up their area." economic infrastructurethighlight Younger black teens at the the gap between white and black Oakland offices of the Urban League, youth employment, nowpegged at16 taking classes that they hope will lead percent for white youth compared to to a summer job, are adamant that 40.0 percent for blacks, according to they would't go out of Oakland to look The Bureau of Labor Statistics. for a job - though that postion is Most experts agree the real gap is tempered by a series of "ifs." "If we even wders ghad cars, it would be a lot easier." "If SOME ECONOMISTS suspect that it was eight hours." "If you're single, this may have more to do with the fact you live with your parents, and you that black youth are simply cut off don't have any kids." from areas of high economic growth For single black mothers like Jan- than with and lack of skills or ex- nis Franklin, 20, suburban work is out perience. of the question. Franklin, a part-time The problem, however, cannot be student at a community college with resolved simply by figuring out how two children agedkand2, depends on to transport black youth to the subur- her welfare check of $480 a month. bs. Instead, a myriad of factors - in- Rent alone is $320. "Getting out there cluding low wages, unfamiliarity with would take up your whole check," she turf, and job discrimination - have says. joined to create a virtually im- TEENS IN the job class also point penetrable barrier between the in- to their unfamiliarity withthe "turf" ner-city and the suburbs. beyond Oakland. Some do not even Oakland's East 14th Street, a miles- know where the suburbs are. Most long commercial thoroughfare cut- would agree with Carlton Jones, 15, ting through many of the city's black who says, "I'd prefer to work in neighborhoods, is a dismal string of Oakland. I know my way around fast food outlets, liquor stores lafn- here." Others asked if their bus tran- dromats, and car dealerships, dotted sfers would be accepted in the subur- with lots and shuttered storefronts. bs - or whether a suburban bus JUST 20 MINUTES away on the system existed at all. BLOOM COUNTY I PO BEUEW6 I ~l/ 60T ME A 5HII6 PRESB'TER/AN? H6M 6RN2N 5W M516L 'M 0!1o THEY P/ONON6 IN I MO H LYMP HAHJACKRO/ ff/CER...HE'5 NHAdCK6RS ? 150 MR-7R \ W\PON 29 32 Job counselor Peter Crabtree says the problem of turf is so severe that some teens are even afraid to go out of their own neighborhood to look for jobs, let alone out of Oakland altogether. All these obstacles mean that inner- city job programs rarely try to find work for teens in the suburbs. "Com- panies send us orders, but they're doing it as an affirmative action gesture, they don't intend to hire from the Urban League," says Crabtree. BOB BRUNER, who directs a job placement program at St. Mary's College in Moraga, an affluent suburn near Walnut Creek, confirms that employers like to "hire someone that's local ... connected to the community. They don't want to have to pick somebody from BART." Ultimately, these difficulties could be less important if a growing labor shortage in the suburbs forces em- ployers to turn to innercity youth. George Sternlieb, director of the Rutgers University Center for Urban Policy Research, says such a shor- tage is possible as fewer people will be entering the labor force - 1.4 million annually in 1990-95, down from an average of 2.2 million in 1968-80. He points out that informal tran- sportation systems, using private jit- neys - called "slave vans" by critics - are already in use to shuttle unem- ployeo inner-city workers to outlying suburbs in the New York area and elsewhere. "SOMEONE rents or buys a van, loads it up with 12 to 15 ladies from ghetto areas for a buck or two each, and then drops them off to do a day's domestic work and picks them up on the way back," says Sternlieb, who adds the system is "very substantial and expanding." Such systems could help bridge the gap between white and black youth labor markets. "Suburban employers are going to be looking for these kids, not because them love them but because they're all they'll be able to find," Sternlieb says. "The numbers suggest this is a window of opportunity that's opening before us to reduce black youth unemployment, not only as a statistical phenomenon, but to ensure that these kids grow up as part of mainstream America." Freedberg wrote this for Pacific News Service. by Berke Breathed 75T NONE 'CEPr Ni 1=6EN BREATN... CO/I PH MS. K/lAP/G AT "T ME FIFTY FEE-- V7'O 1. o H