Thursday, August 09, 2007

Public funding for Bob Jones University

Why is the State of South Carolina giving 2.5 million dollars of the public's money to help low-income students attend Bob Jones University (a.k.a Fundie U)?

Before the legislation was passed, Shannon said, private colleges had to be nonprofit organizations, have a major campus and headquarters in South Carolina and be accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Under the new legislation, a private college can meet those criteria or it can simply be a bachelor's level institution chartered before 1962 with a major campus and headquarters in South Carolina, the latter of which allows Bob Jones to qualify.

Senators Michael Fair and Darrell Jackson sponsored the bill. Sounds like a little back channel fundie political pork to me.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wish I could stop paying taxes because of this. I will not allow my 58 cents* to be used for this.... crap.

I'm seroius--not joking... I'm actually thinking about calling my congressman. (Though both Michael Fair and Darrell Jackson are in the senate, my senator is a Republican, and my representative is a Democrat.... then again Jackson is a democrat.. but also a minister at a church).

*That's about what it would be worth if all 4,321,249 people in SC (as of the 2000 census) were taxed exactly the same.

Unknown said...

Is there something larger at issue here? Similar examples can be seen all across this country.
Is it the whittling away of secular education? I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but....