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billion dollars, whatever the fig-
ure is, and redirect it to the Pell
Grant program” Kantrowitz said.

The
University’s
Office
of

Financial Aid said they couldn’t
say how many students use the
AOTC because those deductions
are filed through IRS, not the Uni-
versity.

In light of the president’s sec-

ond proposal, which would make
two years of community college
free, Kantrowitz noted that in
community colleges — where
more than half of the students are
typically lower income — tuition
is already effectively free because
they already use the Pell Grant
and AOTC. Thus, the president’s
second proposal would lead to
low-income students using less of
the credit they would be eligible
for under AOTC.

“So that would actually lead to

a decrease in the tax credits used

by low-income students despite
the expansion of the amount for
which they are eligible,” Kan-
trowitz said. “It’s difficult to say
what the impact would be, but I
believe it sounds good on paper,
but the reality after implementa-
tion might be substantially differ-
ent.”

Peter Riley Bahr, associate pro-

fessor of education at the Universi-
ty, said reducing the cost of college
is an important goal, as cheaper
or free tuition makes access to
higher education easier. However,
he also noted that tuitions are not
the only costs community college
students incur, as many of them
face living expenses, family and
childcare responsibilities.

“We have to remember that

making a college less expensive is
a good thing but it’s not a complete
solution to the financial barriers
that students face,” he said.

Bahr noted that students who

enroll in community college do
so for a diverse range of reasons.
Some students are not full time

and not all are seeking to complete
credentials, but may be retrain-
ing and getting certificates and
licenses. Therefore, the way the
program is implemented is also
important.

“I would hate to see free college

with strings attached, like ‘You
must be a full time student, you
must be these other things,’ that
may or may not fit, or will not fit
the college going model for some
segments of the population,” he
said.

Bahr said he’s not optimistic

that the legislature actually imple-
ments the plan due to the political
climate, but praised Obama for
highlighting the issue.

“He has done many things

well, but one thing he has done
really well in his administration
is draw attention to the value and
significance of community col-
leges in our society today,” Bahr
said. “There is no question that
community colleges are playing a
larger educational training role in
our society and our economy.”

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Friday, January 30, 2015 — 3

cate people on Brazil culture and
have this lovely evening,” she
said.

The IEDP class curriculum

and trip itinerary were planned
entirely by the students. Stu-
dents applied to the program last
September and have been orga-
nizing the class since November
2013. They will be in Brazil for
the duration of spring break.

Chanera Pierce, a Public Pol-

icy graduate student, said the
IEPD program was the reason
she chose the University in the
first place.

“One of the most attractive

features was the opportunity
to not only critically examine
a country but to actually visit,”
Pierce said. “I saw that and I was
like, ‘One, I will be at this school;
two, I am going to do this pro-
gram.’ ”

Rory Pulvino, a dual-degree

graduate student in Law and
Public Policy, is group president
and said the IEDP program also
drew him to the school. Pul-
vino said Brazil’s wide array
of socio-economic populations
paired well with his interest in
economic development abroad—
compelling him to propose Bra-
zil originally.

The goal for the class is to

learn about Brazil’s policies
through direct contact with the
country’s stakeholders. Students
are researching five focus areas
— economic development, social
welfare, environmental issues,
urban planning and security —
and producing policy analysis
papers following their visit.

Pulvino said the group will

meet with representatives from
Brazilian organizations like the
Ministry of Cities, the Ministry
of Science, Technology and Inno-
vation and the Ministry of Social
Development, among others.

“I’m interested in land issues,

property issues and natural
resource management and Bra-
zil obviously has a lot of these
issues,” he said. “They have the
Amazon, which is obviously a
massive global natural resource
that needs to be managed, hope-
fully correctly. They also have
urban issues that are very inter-
esting, especially in terms of
property laws.”

Matthew Manning, a Public

Policy graduate student, was one
of the members who worked on
creating the original syllabus for
the class. He said it was impor-
tant to both educate everyone
on Brazil before the trip, as well
as prepare the group with skills
like public speaking. He said the
prospect of getting final papers
published is also appealing to
many in the group.

Also included in the curricu-

lum are frequent posts to a pub-
lic blog and presentations to the
class on students’ respective Bra-
zil research.

“The website right now, what

we want, our vision for it is to
be kind of like a resource on just
Brazil in general to build up a
following of people,” Manning
said. “We wanted to incorporate
a strong writing element. And
of course presentation skills are
very important in a professional
environment so we wanted to
also have this presentation.”

While still in Ann Arbor, the

group is contacting to experts on
Brazil and urban issues to learn
from first-hand sources. Man-
ning said he recently scheduled
for Paulo Sotero, director of the
Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute
in Washington, D.C., to visit in
February.

Though the IEDP program has

run since 2000 — with students
traveling to countries like China,
Peru, Jordan and others — this
year’s trip is made unique by its
advising professor: Public Policy
Prof. Melvyn Levitsky, who was

the U.S. ambassador to Brazil
from 1994 to 1998. His resume
also includes serving on the Unit-
ed Nations Economic and Social
Council and other senior-level
positions throughout a 35-year
career as a diplomat.

Levitsky,
who
surprised

guests Thursday with a rendition
of “The Girl From Ipanema,” said
he hopes to offer an extra level
of insight to the students from
his own experiences in Brazil.
Levitsky said another goal for
the trip is outreach to the com-
munity, establishing connections
with organizations to create a
two-way street of collaboration
between Brazil and the Universi-
ty. He said he hopes to encourage
students in the area to apply to
the University and also establish
an internship opportunity for
current University students this
summer—a common goal of each
IEDP program.

Manning, Burdette and Pierce

all said Brazil actually shares
similar racial and social issues to
the United States, both today and
throughout history. However,
they said most Americans are
unfamiliar with those parallels.
These topics include police bru-
tality, racial tensions and poverty
in the favelas, or Brazilian slums.

Pierce
has
already
done

research on Brazil’s social poli-
cies. She said her report on Bra-
zil’s “Minha Casa Minha Vida”
(My House My Life) national
housing policy gives her a head
start on exploring the country
next month. More specifically,
Pierce is interested in further
exploring the country’s racial
tensions and how the laws affect
Afro-Brazilians.

“Just because they didn’t

have a formal and institutional-
ized policy that supported dis-
crimination does not mean their
ongoing policies did not implic-
itly
support
discrimination,”

she said. “So, you have the Black
community having the lowest
literacy rates, or they are largely
not employed in white-collar
positions.”

Another interest for many

students is the economic impact
of the 2016 Rio Olympics. Man-
ning and others explained how
opposition groups to the Olym-
pics have sprouted following the
2014 World Cup in Brazil, with
many Brazilians seeing the event
as doing more financial harm
than good for the population as a
whole after mismanagement and
possible corruption.

Manning said he’s looking

into arranging meetings with
both the Olympic committee and
opposition groups in Rio.

Levitsky said he’s also excited

for the students to work through
the planning process of a diplo-
matic trip.

“If somebody’s doing a trip,

like the President of the United
States, to the director of a sec-
tion in a non-governmental orga-
nization, the trip is not for fun.
They’re going to find out and try
to learn how, actually, Brazil has
done quite a bit better in terms of
growth—although the last couple
years aren’t as good—than so
many other countries.”

According to the CIA World

Factbook, Brazil ranked eighth
globally in gross domestic prod-
uct in 2013. Many of the students
in the class said their peers who
are less familiar with the coun-
try tend to short sell its success,
considering it a “developing”
country rather than a major
global force.

“In reality, it’s a much more

complex story on the ground,”
said Lauren Burdette, a Pub-
lic Policy graduate student. “If
you don’t actually learn the
history of a country and learn
what’s actually happening on
the ground, you run the danger
of making a lot of assumptions
of what life is actually like there
and assumptions can make real-
ly bad policy.”

BRAZIL
From Page 1

can only say that every rider with
whom I’ve spoken to felt safe.”

Safety questions surrounding

Uber’s operation is just one facet
of the Uber controversy, which
has emerged internationally as
well.

In Ann Arbor, local taxi ser-

vice owners and operators have
raised financial concerns in addi-
tion to the safety concerns raised
by members of the community
and City Council.

Merlyn Wade, owner of Ann

Arbor Cab, has been in the taxi
business for almost 30 years. He
submitted a five-page testimony
to state legislators, outlining the
flaws in a Michigan House of
Representatives bill proposed
in December. The bill called for
statewide mandatory permits,
insurance and screening for driv-
ers for services such as Uber and
Lyft.

Wade said, if passed, the bill

would have allowed Uber to con-

tinue operating the same way it
has been, without following reg-
ulations taxicabs have to follow.

“They would have been able

to operate without a chauffeur’s
license,
without
commercial

insurance, without commercial
plating,” he said.

He added that those rules are

put in place to protect both the
passenger and the driver in a
taxi.

“They might seem archaic, but

they’re there for a reason,” Wade
said. “And the rules and the reg-
ulations that we have to follow
out here are not excessive.”

Wade also noted the unfair

advantage he sees in the Uber
business model.

“I have a wife who’s termi-

nally ill and I’ve got five chil-
dren I’m trying to feed, and I
follow the rules and I come out
here, just like my drivers do, and
these guys are allowed to come
out here and operate illegally,
and take food off the table of my
family? How is that right?” Wade
said.

“I don’t have a problem with

Uber doing business. I have a

problem with Uber not following
the same rules everybody else
follows,” he added.

John Etter, president of Blue

Cab Company, expressed simi-
lar views. His cab company pays
$5,000 to $10,000 per car a year.

“To have a competitor that

doesn’t have to pay that? That
doesn’t seem right,” Etter said.

Etter said he has seen busi-

ness suffer as a result of Uber,
especially with the student mar-
ket on weekend nights.

In response to the new tech-

nology Uber on which operates,
Etter said Blue Cab is working
to develop an app of its own,
which would allow customers to
see where the cars are and keep
their credit cards on file.

While taxi companies attri-

bute a drop in customers due
to Uber, Ann Arbor taxis them-
selves are not immune to safety
concerns from the community.
In 2013, the Ann Arbor News
reported a Blue Cab taxi driver
was arraigned for two misde-
meanor
assault
and
battery

charges after a female customer
reported he kissed her.

UBER
From Page 1

was stayed a day later, mean-
ing no more same-sex marriages
could be performed in the state
pending an appeal by the state to
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Sixth Circuit. In November, the
Sixth Circuit reversed the district
court’s decision, upholding the
state’s ban.

Following the Sixth Circuit

decision, DeBoer and Rowse
appealed
their
case
to
the

Supreme Court.

Earlier this month, the U.S.

Supreme Court agreed to take
up the case, consolidating it with
three other similar cases from
other states in the Sixth Circuit.

The Ann Arbor City Council

will vote on Monday to decide
whether or not Ann Arbor will be
listed as a “Supporting Municipal-
ity” in this Supreme Court case.

By approving the listing, Coun-

cil members will state that the city
is in favor of legalization of same-
sex marriage in the state.

Solar installation

Council members will also

discuss a resolution to approve
a license agreement with DTE
Energy to build a solar installa-
tion at the Ann Arbor Municipal
Airport.

If passed, the city will grant

DTE the use of Ann Arbor city
property to install and operate
photovoltaic systems.

Photovoltaic systems, which

consist of solar panels and solar
converters, are sources of usable
solar power.

If the resolution passes, the

system will be installed in two
phases. The contract states that
the installation will be completed
on or before December 31, 2017.

Plum Market Rezoning and

Site Plan

The Ann Arbor Planning Com-

mission has outlined a rezoning
and site plan for the potential

opening of a Plum Market on
Plymouth Road.

Plum Market, which also has a

store on North Maple Road, sells
groceries with an emphasis on
local and organic products.

The proposal is to rezone 2.96

acres from their designation as a
Planned Unit Development dis-
trict to a C3, Fringe Commercial
district, which would permit the
existing 25,000 sq. ft. building on
the land to be used as a grocery
store.

The plan also proposes the con-

struction of a 4,639 square foot
addition to the building’s north
side, as well as an outdoor patio.

Construction costs are estimat-

ed to be $300,000.

The plan also recommended

that the retail center be acces-
sible to pedestrians. In addition,
it encouraged mass transit access
and a reduction of the demand for
parking. Bicycle lanes and side-
walks were also recommended on
both sides of Plymouth Road.

CITY COUNCIL
From Page 1

team, the group currently has
more than a dozen mentors.

Business sophomore Lauren

Dodge, one of the mentors, said
the organization gives her to pur-
sue objectives outside of her aca-
demic path.

“I always had a passion for

business and I was torn between
whether I wanted to go into
business or I wanted to go into
teaching,” Dodge said. “So when
I heard about Moneythink, I real-
ized that it combined both of my
passions.”

At Skyline High School, the

group mentors a class of seniors
in the school’s three-year busi-
ness magnet program.

Michelle Wargo, a business,

marketing and information tech-
nology teacher at Skyline, who
leads the program, said students
have voiced positive feedback
about the program so far.

“Financial literacy is really

important, and I think wherever
they can get that is great,” Wargo
said. “And they get the best of
both worlds with this program
— they get to have mentors in col-
lege and they get to bond with
them over other things as well,
plus learn financial literacy.”

At the beginning of each week,

Stuart and Lobel teach mentors
curriculum for the upcoming Fri-
day. The national team provides
individual lesson topics to help
guide each chapter, but there is
some flexibility based on student
interest, Dodge said.

“We mend the curriculum to

keep them engaged and make the
topics relatable to their lives,” she
said.

Because the Skyline students

are enrolled in a business pro-
gram, most have already had
some
exposure
to
financial

knowledge and skills, either from
their parents or jobs, Stuart said.

“Especially (because) the les-

sons we’ve had so far have been
pretty easy, we want to make sure
they’re still engaged and taking it
seriously,” Stuart said. “So we’ve
been stepping it up a bit, and com-
bining two lessons into one.”

The organization also uses

a smartphone application that
encourages students to practice
the skills they’ve learned outside
of the classroom. One week, stu-
dents were asked to take a picture
of their bank. The next, they were
asked to take pictures of purchas-
es they spent money and saved
money on, and to elaborate on
whether or not those were good
purchases.

Moneythink uses a point sys-

tem to incentivize out-of-class
participation: each time students
do these tasks they earn points,
and at the end of the semester the
group that has earned the most
points will win a prize.

Before Moneythink started at

Skyline, its mentors also under-
went an orientation that taught
them how to serve as effective
role models to the high school
students, rather than just a friend.

“Moneythink emphasizes the

mentor role,” Stuart said. “So, one
mentor will have a group of stu-
dents, and it’s the same mentor
going back to the same students
every week. This way, they devel-
op a pretty strong relationship.”

Mentors usually work with

groups no larger than four stu-
dents to allow for this relation-
ship to develop.

Stuart said she and Lobel are

currently working on reaching
out to both Huron and Pioneer
High Schools in Ann Arbor to
hopefully expand the program.

Their ultimate goal is to have

one or two partner schools in
Detroit by fall 2016.

“In Ann Arbor, it’s not the first

time (the students) are hearing
about (financial planning),” Stu-
art said. “We want to have a good
understanding of what we’re
doing before we reach out to a
school that needs us a bit more.”

MONEYTHINK
From Page 1

SOTU
From Page 1

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“JOURNALISM IS THE

FIRST DRAFT OF HISTORY.”

NEWS BRIEFS

LANSING
Legislator proposes
law to make assault
on a referee a felony

A state senator is sponsoring

legislation to make it a felony to
assault a referee or other official
at a sporting event in Michigan.

Detroit Democrat Morris Hood

III said he decided to propose the
law after referees in southeastern
Michigan approached him in the
aftermath of soccer referee John
Bieniewicz’s death at an adult
league game in Livonia last sum-
mer. Bassel Saad, a player ejected
from the game, goes on trial Feb.
23 on a second-degree murder
charge.

WYOMING, Mich.
Police officer shot
in stomach during
response to dispute

A western Michigan police

officer and a man who opened fire
on officers in a community near
Grand Rapids have been wound-
ed.

Wyoming police Chief James

Carmody tells WOOD-TV that
the officers were responding to a
domestic dispute Thursday after-
noon when the man shot one of
them.

Carmody says officers returned

fire, striking the man. His name
hasn’t been released.

WZZM-TV reports that the

officer was shot in the abdomen
and says the man who shot him
was hospitalized in serious condi-
tion.

Neighbors tell WZZM-TV that

they heard as many as 40 shots.

WEST PALM BEACH
Treasure hunter
eluded police with
cash and tradecraft

A deep-sea treasure hunter

who vanished during a court
fight over his $50 million haul
of gold bars and coins eluded
capture by hiding in a two-room
hotel suite under a fake name,
paying for everything in cash and
keeping a low-profile, authorities
said Thursday.

When
Tommy
Thompson

and his longtime companion did
leave the hotel room, usually
alone and her more than him,
they would use a combination of
buses, taxis and walking around
to shake anyone who might be
tailing them.

Thompson, 62, was wanted

after he failed to appear in an
Ohio courtroom in 2012 in a law-
suit about the gold he brought
up in 1988 from a 19th century
shipwreck. Two investors who
had funded Thompson’s dream
to find the shipwreck sued, as did
some of his crew members, who
said they also had been cheated
out of their share.

LOS ANGELES
Suspect charged in
disappearance of
Fox film executive

A convicted drug dealer was

charged Thursday with the
murder of a 20th Century Fox
executive,
who
mysteriously

disappeared more than two
years ago and whose remains
were found in a northern Los
Angeles County desert area in
October.

John Lenzie Creech, 42, was

charged Thursday with 57-year-
old Gavin Smith’s death, accord-
ing to the Los Angeles County
district attorney’s office.

Smith was last seen leaving

a female friend’s home in Ven-
tura County’s Oak Park neigh-
borhood on May 1, 2012. Hikers
discovered the remains about
70 miles away, near Palmdale in
the Antelope Valley, on Oct. 26,
the Los Angeles County Sher-
iff’s Department said.

Smith was with Fox’s movie

distribution
department
for

nearly 18 years. He was also a
former UCLA basketball player
and had three children.

—Compiled from
Daily wire reports

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