Taxes are due when?
Rosie Githinji, Alestle Opinion Editor
by Rosie Githinji, Alestle Opinion Editor
It’s tax time, and everyone is scrambling to make sure they get everything turned in by Thursday. For those who did not receive extensions, it could get a little overwhelming.
My favorite part about tax time is all the people who do not seem to realize you can file your taxes as early as January.
Each year, as soon as my W2s arrive, my mother and I sit down so that I can get my taxes done and filed. My only reason for bothering with it or even remembering is that the earlier I file my taxes the sooner I can get all my financial aid paperwork done. And, especially at SIUE, I have found the earlier I file paperwork, the better.
One day, I will not have my mother to remind me to make sure that my taxes are done. And hopefully, one day, I will not have to worry about getting them done early to get my financial aid paperwork done early either.
I am going to have to start educating myself on what I need to know to do my taxes. Since there are all kinds of programs to do it yourself, it should be pretty easy. Still I am always terrified that I am going to do it wrong, thanks to the commercials talking about all the different tax law changes and and that I could be getting more money back than I thought.
I can only hope that it will either become easier or cheaper to do taxes, because I am not a number-oriented person.
If the government has the time to find all the mistakes I made when I filed taxes, they should think about implementing some kind of program to make sure that its citizens are at least marginally educated in the whole tax filing process.
A goose lesson for SIUE
by T.J. Cowell, Alestle Sports Reporter
As the weather gets warmer and the heavy coats worn around campus get replaced with t-shirts, the inevitable mating season of the SIUE Canada geese comes along with the spring. I need to be careful here because talking geese at SIUE is like politics; it can turn ugly in a hurry.
The average life of a goose if it reaches adolescence usually spans anywhere from 10 to25 years. That’s a long time to call SIUE a home if they choose to do so. And since there are very little predators besides humans here, the geese have kind of domesticated here around campus.
The eggs laid by mother geese in the spring are vulnerable to fall prey to raccoons, foxes, skunks and a variety of birds to name a few. Even after hatching geese still have their predators they have to be weary of. Most of these predators obviously did not exist around campus. There aren’t any wolves around Edwardsville, and I am guessing Cougar Lake does not have a whole bunch of northern pike or muskie in it. Although I have seen a few raccoons and possums on the outskirts of campus, the list of predators to help control the population of geese at SIUE is very limited.
Since both male and female geese look very similar, it can be hard to tell them apart at times. But at this time of year, both genders can become agitated fairly easily even if you mean them no harm. For the record though, male geese normally tend to be a little larger than females. Males are commonly referred to as “ganders” as while females are actually called “geese.”
Nesting for geese begins in the month of March and will trickle into April. Both males and females will protect their nests. A female will usually lay about a half dozen eggs that in shape are three times the size of chicken eggs. The incubation phase of these eggs will go on for a month or so (25 to 30 days). During this time, the eggs need to be kept warm at a temperature of 90 degrees in order for the embryo to develop. The embryos that do hatch into ducklings will go through a “molting” period of about another month or two.
Typically if you encounter a hostile goose, the best thing to do is to maintain eye contact with the animal. Geese pay close attention and are very wary of body language, so it is not a good idea to turn your back on one. Returning your hostility towards the bird is also a no-no. For the most part, you are trying to get the point across that you mean the bird no harm. A lot of times, geese are only trying to look after their young when they become agitated.
Listed below are a few typical body languages projected by alerted geese that feel they are in danger. You’re best bet: stay clear.
a) Alert, wary of danger
b) Conflict, accompanied with hiss
c) Increased threat, accompanied by a call
d) Conflict situation, pumping display, precedes direct attack
For more information about Canada geese, click here.
Campaigning needs more than just Facebook
Rosie Githinji, Alestle Opinion Editor
by Rosie Githinji, Alestle Opinion Editor
The time for Student Government elections is coming up in about two weeks. There may be a lack of senators running for a position, but there is also a lack of any signage that encourages people to vote for them.
Last year during the elections there were signs and flyers posted up around the campus. This year everything I have seen so far for this election campaign has been on Facebook. Maybe I am just not looking for them hard enough, but there are not even any flyers posted on the bulletin board. There are also no signs anywhere.
I am not sure if it is a lack of funding or if the candidates are not worried about being elected because there are not enough people running for candidacy, but it feels like there is some laziness as well.
Electronic sources are great in getting the word out into the world and spreading it around, but it is also making people less likely to put in as much effort and time they normally would if they did not have all those resources available to them.
Just because there are Facebook groups and events, Twitter feeds, etc. does not mean that those who are trying to get into an elected position should just wait for an outcome that is inevitable since there is not much competition.
If someone is going to represent me and my school, I would like for them to show a little more initiative than just waiting till election day and sending everyone who joined their group or is following them a message saying, “Hey! Vote for me.”
Student Government needs to review its funding rules
Rosie Githinji, Alestle Opinion Editor
by Rosie Githinji, Alestle Opinion Editor
Student Government gave away a lot of money at its last meeting. Last semester, SG decied it would slow spending because of the financial issues plaguing the state and this semester they are giving away thousands of dollars.
Doesn’t make much sense, does it?
The university administration does not have money, and by extension, has asked all other sections of the university to slow down their spending. While it is maintained that Student Government was not specifically asked to slow spending, they did in order to do their part to help.
If there was no money last semester, then it does not make sense that all of a sudden there is enough money to hand out like candy at Halloween. Even the organizations who did not provided enough information to satisfy the Finance Board appealed and got money for travel or program requests.
One of the organizations even got a couple thousand dollars for black lights. That is a little silly. What is going to happen to those black lights after they have been used for the program? They will go back to SG, and no one will know they are there to be used. It will be a waste of $2,500.
If SG is going to lay down ground rules for how much needs to be spent, then those rules need to be changed or tweaked if they are going to just hand out money as easily as they did at the last SG meeting.
Federal Student Aid discriminates against “abnormal” households
Last year I filed my FAFSA for the first time, and I had nothing to do with it. Because I don’t live in what most people consider a “normal” household, we had a financial aid specialist from Kaskaskia College fill out my forms.
I grew up living with my (great) grandparents. I’ll skip the backstory of why my mother lived there, but she was still in high school when I was born, so I also lived there. She continued on to business college, so Grandma took care of me the majority of the time. When I was 12, my mom got married and moved out, while I chose to stay.
Because of this fact, and because my mother doesn’t financially support me, filling out my FAFSA is more than a little complicated. The financial aid specialist met with my mom and my grandparents, and under special circumstances, was able to use my grandparents’ financial information on my FAFSA. This seems logical because they claim me, and have always claimed me, on their taxes. Everything went off without a hitch, and here I am at SIUE.
However, it’s proving to be more complicated than I thought this year. Tuesday, I logged onto www.fafsa.gov and attempted to file my FAFSA by myself. I checked that I could not provide parental information and that I believed I had a special circumstance. The only special circumstance listed was that I could not provide parental information, and that all I would qualify for is an Unsubsidized Stafford Loan. I also read that I could not use legal guardians’ or grandparents’ financial information unless they had legally adopted me.
Now, we’ve never done any paperwork to change legal guardianship to my grandparents, but the Department of Children and Family Services thinks that they are my legal guardians. So, who’s to say that some automatic adoption shenanigans didn’t go on?
So, I got smart and launched a chat session with a Customer Service Representative. After explaining my situation, she informed me that “You must use your biological parents’ information on the FAFSA.” When I told her that they don’t support me, she replied with, “I read that in your above statements.” Wait a second, I didn’t tell her that in my above statements. I simply told her of my living situation and that my grandparents claim me on their taxes. She proceeded to tell me that I shouldn’t have used their information on last year’s FAFSA and that I should let the university know that I did so, so that they can “adjust” my aid. Needless to say, the conversation ended there.
I would hope that a financial aid specialist would know what he is doing with the FAFSA.
In any case, I’m in the process of contacting the same financial aid specialist as last year so I can get this all taken care of. I can’t afford to be taking out loans for my entire college career, and I shouldn’t have to.
In my honest opinion, and not just because I am in this situation, I believe that the people who claim a dependent student on their taxes should be the ones to provide financial information for that student’s FAFSA. It only makes sense. What’s it matter if they aren’t the biological parents? They are the people who support the student, and therefore could be paying for his/her college education.
Simply because someone doesn’t live in the typical nuclear household, doesn’t mean they deserve any less than someone who does. This is discrimination on behalf of the Federal Student Aid program and it needs to stop. Who are they to decide what is “normal,” anyway? This is the household I grew up in, and this is what is “normal” to me.
Being ineligible for grants for this reason alone is just wrong.
