College admissions

On Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012, The Austin American Statesman published an article on how a white student who applied for admission was denied because of race. The UT freshman addmission go as follows, 81% of the freshman class graduated in the top 10 percent, these slot are only judge by class rank not anything else. leaving only about 1,200 slots available for students outside the top 10 percent. There were an estimated of 16,000 students competing for those 1,200 slots. The reason for this lawsuit is because she says that she was more deserving of that slot then a minority who got it because of race being a factor in those 1,200 slots.

The intended audience of this artical are students that are applying to any college not just UT. Mainly those that will be effected by the fact that their race might be the critical factor in whether they are addmitied and not as much their grades. This commonly applies to whites more often then other races but it could end up being that a college has a large amount of ethnic applicants and be the other way around. This author sound credible. The reason i believe that is because even though they are trying to prove a point they are still reasonably objective. Giving lots of information on the subject and bringing alot of points from both sides. Also at least for me i did not know if they were for or against affirmative action untill the end of the artical.(affirmative action; Is to take factors including race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group.) The claim of this artical is very good and is supported by factual information. It makes sence and it logical and it really convinced me.

$22 flat fee on electricity

 On Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012, The Austin American Statesman published an article about an energy proposal to raise rates which would charge a $22 flat fee for all customers. The problem over this is whether the rate increase proposal spreads the higher costs unfairly ammong the diffrent income households. The idea behind the $22 fee is to remove the pressure to sell electricity, allowing the utility to promote conservation. But critics say it would not help conservation as much as Austin Energy says and point to utility calculations showing that someone living in a small apartment would probably see their average monthly bill rise 41%. The other problem witht the energy saving plan is that unlike building a powerplant that would take effect instantly this plan would be for the long run. So what might end up happening is that Austin Energy might not be able keep up witht the growing demand for energy that the population will need.