Did you know that many American colleges charge out-of-state tuition rates to veterans who live in-state but have been deployed out-of-state? And that the GI Bill has covered only veterans' in-state tuition rates for the last year? I didn't, either, and I can't imagine a good reason for it -- unless "because colleges are greedy" counts as a good reason. One North Carolina veteran, who owns a house in North Carolina and paid property taxes on it all through deployments in Iraq and Texas, found herself in the in-state-but-not-really-in-state bind and has started a petition on change.org to tell the University of North Carolina to cut the shenanigans. Arguably the state or federal legislatures should fix this, but certainly the University of North Carolina deserves shame from having played this game with veterans. Like I always say, there is-so such a thing as bad PR.
Meanwhile, if you missed previous opportunities to tell Congress to renew wind power subsidies, Penn Environment still helps you do that. Congress seems inclined to let them expire at year's end, since they complain about America being broke all the time, but if we're so broke, why didn't Congress cut off oil subsidies or corn subsidies? And wind power subsidies seem to be working -- we generate 40 times as much wind power now as we did in 1997, and wind now provides power to over 11 million Americans. In Hawaii, which made the fateful decision to use oil for its utilities in 1905, wind power is already the cheapest option where it's available. Contrast these subsidies with, say, nuclear power subsidies, upon which the nuclear power industry remains utterly dependent after all these decades. Should I say this is a no-brainer? Maybe I should, since Congress only does things that require no brains.
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