Yeah she's a triflin' friend indeed
Oh she's a gold digger way over time
That digs on me
-- Gold Digger (Kanye West)
[ remaining unprintable lyrics here ]
Perhaps you've seen this video of Sandra Fluke (video at the bottom).
Fluke makes the claim that Georgetown University creates financial hardship for Fluke and other law school students by making them pay for their own birth control. Gerogetown is, according to its own web site, a Catholic and Jesuit University - the oldest in the country.
Unless you live under a rock you know that there has been a significant political battle between the current Administration and various religious groups with regard to proposed requirements in the new healthcare bill requiring religious groups to provide birth control as part of its mandated healthcare coverage.
Fluke's video is somewhat troubling - not so much for what it says directly - but for what it leaves out.
For one thing, the cost of tuition per semester is $23,432.50 USD or $46,865.00 USD per two semester year.
At Concord Law School (which I found by Googling around) you can see the annual tuition (two semesters) is $9,984.00 USD, or $4,992.00 USD per semester - about one fifth (1/5) of what Ms. Fluke is paying at Georgetown (though the program may take four years) - though its an "on line" school - so no transportation or housing costs - and D.C. is not a cheap place to live.
Ms. Fluke claims that for three years of "birth control" at Georgetown her classmates are paying about $1,000.00 USD out of their own pockets.
According to this site the "real" cost of birth control ranges from about $0.00
The $1,000.00 per year figure seems rather disingenuous.
But then apparently we are to consider this within the context of someone who is paying 900% more for an education than at least those students enrolled at Concord Law School.
I have written extensively about the value of education here (see my post "21, 55K a year, and no debt...") and it would seem that Ms. Fluke is working hard to land at the opposite end of the spectrum as compared to Mr. Gasper who I write about in that article. Though cleverly Ms Fluke has apparently, at least based on what she says in the video, gotten others to provide a scholarship for her at Georgetown law.
Clearly Ms. Fluke does not seem to believe in paying out of her own pocket.
So it would seem, at least according to her, you and I are to pay for Ms. Fluke's extra curricular activities while not actually in class.
Now, for example, I have to pay for my dog to have a rabies shot. Where I live, a few years ago, there was a significant epidemic of rabid animals in the area - to the point where I considered carrying a side arm on my daily jog (as opposed to going hand to hand with rabid racoons).
Yet, though rabies is a significant health danger (see my post "Pet Peeve"), and even with neighbors with small children and grandchildren roaming about, no one seemed to feel that any amount of government "support" was or should have been provided to address this health issue.
Perhaps there is some other reason Ms. Fluke feels that we must provide support for her choices.
At the site above about the "real" cost of birth control one also learns that the cost of raising a child is roughly $13,000.00 per year.
Perhaps Ms. Fluke believes that this is a cost she is unwilling or unable to bear?
However, at least relative to the cost of Georgetown Law, one ought to be able to raise a child to ten or twelve years old for the cost of tuition alone.
I wonder what she will do if and when the bill comes do for a child?
In my youth (as in my college days) there was a term for those who expected "Daddy Warbucks" to pay for their whims: gold digger (no, not the Kanye West song).
In case you never heard the song check this (probably not copyright infringing) video:
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