Cartoon : A Class on College Tuition

Political cartoon by Chuck Asay of The Colorado Springs Gazette published on 06 November 2010.

In this conservative leaning political cartoon, the cartoonist is critical of the government taking control of the student loan business. It is full of good vocabulary.

You see a caricature of Obama leading a classroom discussing how to make college tuition more affordable. First, what is tuition? This is the money you pay to take a class at a college, university or private school.

The caricature of Obama states that it is skyrocketing and need to be made more affordable. This means that cost of going to school has increased very quickly and become very expensive and so something must be done to lower the price so more people can pay for it. Look at this example of the vocabulary in use: Currently the price of gold is skyrocketing and is become less affordable for those who want to buy gold.

In response to how to make tuition more affordable, one of the students suggests that colleges should compete for students in a free market. He believes there should be more competition. This means that a university should try to attract more students by offering better educational services at lower prices than another university.

Mr. Marx, an illusion of course to Karl Marx, has another idea. He believes that the government (he uses the common term the Feds to refer to people working for the US government) should take over the student loan business because a government is too big to fail (tell that to the Soviet Union!). A loan is the money you request to borrow from a bank for which you pay back over time at interest. If something fails, it is unsuccessful and doesn’t work.

At the end of the cartoon, we see the caricature of Obama asking the class who they think is going to flunk his class. In the case of this class, the first student is going to flunk and Mr. Marx is going to pass. If you flunk a class, you fail the class and do not get a good mark or grade. If you succeed and get the necessary grade or mark to move up to the next class or level, you pass it. Congratulations!

Vocabulary In the News : 9 September 2009 – The Irish Times

NOTE! I apologize, link to image and PDF became inactive over time.

If you’d like a more readable version of this front page (pdf format), go HERE! For the newspaper’s homepage go to : http://www.independent.ie/

- The Bank of Ireland made a blunder! It was a careless and embarrassing mistake. They blundered by double debiting some of the charges made by their card users. Oops! Unfortunately, this gaffe or error forced some of their clients into the red which means their bank accounts went into a situation where they did not have enough money to cover the charges. Thankfully, the bank caught their slip (mistake) and is refunding the money to 120,000 customers. http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/top-bank-pays-back-120000-hit--by-card-blunder-1881243.html

- In another banking story, the Green Party is asking that some directors of bank boards be sacked! They want these directors to be fired (forcibly removed) in order to reassure the public that the banking culture has changed. The sacking would effect about 18 directors as well as other personnel. http://www.independent.ie/national-news/greens-seek--removal--of-bankers--as-part-of-nama-deal-1881244.html

- In Ireland at the end of the Junior Cycle (13 to 15 year olds), students take the Junior Certificate examination, also known as the Junior Cert. The Irish Education Ministry is planning a shake-up of the exam. They want to revamp the exam; in other words, they want to improve it to better promote real understanding and skills. The shake-up would also involve reducing the number of subjects tested which is currently between 10 and 14! http://www.independent.ie/education/latest-news/junior-cert-revamp-will-focus-more-on-skills-than-exams-1881187.html

- And in yet another Irish banking story, a probe is being conducted by investigators and detectives into a loans and deposits controversy at the Anglo Irish Bank. A probe is simply an investigation to find out the truth. In order to probe deeper, witnesses need to be interviewed but that will take time and slow down the enquiry. In order to speed up the investigation, they are beefing up the investigative team by adding 20 officers. http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/gardai-poised-to-quiz-key-anglo-figures-in-bank-probe-1881292.html

The front page of the Irish Independent (Dublin, Ireland) taken from http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

Please, if you have any questions about the vocabulary or just want to leave a comment or criticism, don’t forget to use the comments option at the end of each post! Let me know what you think of this new format for Vocabulary In the News!