News Briefs

Obama Waiver Allows U.S. Aid To 4 Countries Using Child Soldiers

President Barack Obama has granted a waiver allowing four countries to continue receiving U.S. military aid even though they use child soldiers, officials said Wednesday.

Human rights groups reacted with surprise and concern, saying the decision would send the wrong message.

Administration officials said cutting off aid would cause more damage than good in countries where the U.S. military is trying to fight terrorism and reform abusive armies.

Obama sent a memo to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, dated Monday, saying that it was "in the national interest" to waive a cut off of military assistance for Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Yemen.

Those countries would have been penalized under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush shortly before he left office. The law took effect this year, after the State Department identified six countries that used child soldiers – including Somalia and Burma.

Senior U.S. officials said Wednesday that Yemen was exempted because ending military aid would jeopardize the country's ability to fight al-Qaida. In Sudan, U.S. military assistance will be critical in helping the unstable southern part of the country build military institutions if it votes to secede in a January referendum, as expected, officials said.

Congo was exempted because U.S.-funded programs there are aimed at helping the military become more professional and less abusive, officials said. Chad got a pass because of its role in fighting terrorism and assistance with the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. In addition, U.S. aid goes toward helping that country's military end its practice of using child soldiers, officials said.

Net Cost of College Tuition And Fees Lower Than In 2005

A new report from the College Board might prompt a different sort of sticker shock: the net price of college tuition and fees, after factoring in student aid and inflation, is actually lower now than five years ago.

Tuition and fees rose 7.9 percent between 2009 and 2010 at public universities for in-state students and 4.5 percent for private four-year non-profit colleges, according to the annual report Trends in College Pricing, released Thursday.

But the past year also saw a massive investment in public and private aid, enough to erase most of the increase in the sticker price of college – at least for students who receive aid.

The average yearly net price of public four-year universities in tuition and fees, after discounting grant aid and tax benefits, declined from $2,080 to $1,540 in inflation-adjusted dollars between 2005-06 and 2010-11, according to data from a national College Board survey. The net price for private colleges declined in those years from $12,750 to $11,320.

Add the cost of room and board, and the average public university student pays about $10,000 a year, a few hundred dollars more than five years ago. Private university students pay a little over $20,000, a bit less than in 2005-06.

Total grant aid to undergraduate students rose a remarkable 22 percent in 2009-10, or $1,100 per student, fueled by a historic increase in federal Pell grants. Pell funding, earmarked for students of modest means, rose from $18 billion to $28 billion in a single year; the Obama administration has championed the Pell grant.

Institutional grant aid from colleges increased as well, from $30 billion to $33 billion.

The outpouring of aid might not be felt by affluent families with children in $50,000-a-year universities, many of whom saw tuition bills continue to rise.

But those students are not the norm. Two-thirds of U.S. colleges charge tuition and fees of $15,000 or less. The average total cost of a year at college in 2010-11, including living expenses, reached $36,993 at private colleges and $16,140 at public colleges.

Buffalo Public School Employees Spend $9 million on Cosmetic Surgery

Cosmetic surgery bills for Buffalo Public Schools employees have grown from less than $1 million in 2004 to nearly $9 million last year.

The number of cosmetic surgery procedures has more than tripled during the last five years, with more than 8,000 procedures performed in 2009. The majority of these procedures, nine out of 10 of them, were chemical peels, laser hair removal, skin rejuvenation and other skin treatments.

According to officials, all procedures require a doctor's approval.

District officials confirmed that taxpayers cover the entire cost directly because the district is self-insured for its cosmetic surgery rider. Board of Education member Christopher Jacobs began researching the use of the rider by employees of the school district as well as the city.

The district spent $922,621 for procedures in 2004, which increased to $8.96 million last year. Barbara J. Smith, the district chief financial officer, stated that the benefit is used by a small number of around 500 employees or two percent of those with health insurance.