I saw an article about financing for college

Context
The Shreveport Times runs "The Color of Money" by Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary. Today's column was about financing for college and contained excerpts from a conversation with Joseph Hurley, author of The Best Way to Save for College: A Complete Guide to 529 Plans and publisher of the savingforcollege.com website.

This was one of the questions Singletary asked: "When applying or need-based financial aid, I know that institutions look at both parental and child resources. Do you know whether a 529 savings account would count against a family? It seems like a disincentive. The families who don't save will ultimately get more (free) need-based aid as they have no savings and are needier."

I read this column in today's paper edition of The Times, but I couldn't find it on the website. I found it at washingtonpost.com, but it requires registration, and since I refuse to do that, I certainly won't recommend it to you.

Commentary
I didn't read the response to Singletary's question, because I was too floored by the question itself. Also, I finished college long ago and have no children. Anyway, here's how I read the question: "should people who can afford to save for college neglect to do so in order to be in a better position to compete with people who are unable to save for college for the limited resource that is government aid?" Shorter version: "what exactly do people need to do to ensure that they 'get theirs' from the government?"

I don't want to single (hee!) Singletary out for my incredulity here. Lots of financial journalists write about similar issues: how can I keep Medicare from taking my home when I go into a nursing home; how do I provide my grandchildren with an inheritance that won't count against their SSDI (full disclosure: members of my family have taken advantage of that one); etc. It has become commonplace for us to think of programs that were originally developed as safety nets as being entitlements. We paid into these funds with our taxes, the reasoning goes, we should be able to take what we want from them. Or sometimes just, "they exist, so we should be able to take what we want from them."

Peter G. Peterson has a lot of interesting things to say about how we came to this state of affairs in his book Running on Empty. In it, he lays blame pretty equally on both liberals and conservatives, but Democrats are singled out for believing that social programs that both exist on a need-based basis are not politically viable because nobody will support government aid they don't personally benefit from. From my perspective, they're wrong. I believe self-sufficiency is its own reward. I remember when I first started working after graduating from college, I used to have so much fun paying my bills. "Woo-hoo! I earned this money, now I can pay for my own air conditioning!" I lived in Houston; air conditioning was far and away my biggest expense. I won't say that I'm still that enthusiastic; twenty years of paying your own way calms one down a bit.

The attitude Singletary is inquiring about (I won't claim she has it herself) brings to mind my favorite parable: the one about the workers being hired to work the field throughout the day (Matthew 20:1-15). When I teach kids about this parable I tell them there's something else going on besides God rewarding whom He chooses. The people who start working in the field early, i.e. the people who don't wait until they're about to die to serve God, get an extra reward: they get to serve God longer! People who can afford to save for college tuition for their children get a reward that's far better than free money: they get to put their children through college! What could be a better fulfillment of the American dream than that?

Please understand, generally-available government services are another story. I think everybody should use their public libraries, schools and roads. And if we had a tax system that supported universal higher education, public nursing homes, and single-payer health care, I would expect everyone to take advantage of those as well, because they would be designed for everyone's use. But need-based financial aid for college should be just that: need-based. If you don't need it, you shouldn't be thinking about how you can take advantage of it anyway.

What did you see today?

I heard someone talk about competition

Context
I teach high school Sunday School at my husband's church. Frequently I'll have no students, so I'll spend the time talking with other members of the church. Today, as we were discussing the war in Iraq, one of them said something like this: "I don't really know the differences between Sunnis and Shi'ites, but I know the main problem is they don't want to be equal. They each want us to take their side."

Commentary
As is true of most of the people at First Lutheran, the man I was talking to is both older and more conservative than me. However, in this particular case I agreed with him. I told him, "I think you're right, but that's true of everybody. Everybody wants to be ahead of everyone else."

I think that competitiveness is both normal and healthy. I think that makes me unusual among pacifists, because there's a tendency to think that competition leads to strife, and that's what we're trying to avoid. Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but I believe there are ways to be competitive without being violent toward your fellow human being. I'm going to use some examples from the National Football League to illustrate my point, because that's the competition I'm paying the most attention to as we head into the conference championships.

One problem with competitiveness that seems to prey especially on the minds of parents of small children is the possibility that being defeated in a contest will damage one's self-esteeem. I think this happens when we expand our analysis of a competition's outcome beyond reasonable limits.

For example, this is a true statement: "The New England Patriots defeated the San Diego Chargers in a divisional playoff game last week."

This one might be true as well: "Over a span of 60 minutes last week, the New England Patriots were a better football team than the San Diego Chargers."

However, none of these are true:

1) "The New England Patriots are morally superior to the San Diego Chargers."
2) "Each individual member of the New England Patriots is more manly than each individual member of the San Diego Chargers."

or even
3) "The New England Patriots will always beat the San Diego Chargers every time they play."

Each win or loss in a competitive event is related to that event only and should not be treated as giving insight into other aspect of life. No little girl should ever be led to think that if a ball gets past her into a soccer net that it means she'll never have any success at anything. For that matter no 26-year-old quarterback should feel that way either.

OK, that's how we keep competition from being negative, how do we make it positive? Well, the narrow focus can also be beneficial in our search for identity, something psychologists tell us starts in adolescence, but I think stays with us as long as we grow as people. In fact, this is a context where, although winning is great, losing may provide more valuable lessons.

For example, at Indiana University, Antwaan Randle El was a quarterback. However, in the NFL he lost that competition to guys who were, quite frankly, better quarterbacks. Now he's not only one of the best receivers in the NFL, but occasionally scares defenses to death with the prospect that he'll drop back and throw the ball instead of catching it. So let's review:

True statement: Antwaan Randle El is not as good at the quarterback positions as some other guys are.

False statements: "Antwaan Randle El can't play professional football." "Antwaan Randle El can't scare the defense." Or even, "Antwaan Randle El will never throw a pass in the NFL," because he's already thrown several.

Antwaan Randle El's identity, at least at his day job, is defined differently from what he might have expected. But it's still a great identity, and it's all his because very few people pose the same multiple threat he does. Competition can do that for you, whittle down the "what you're good at, what you're not good at, what you can learn more about, what you'd just as soon not bother with" stuff until you're the perfect little sculpture God meant you to be.

So go out there and compete! Celebrate your wins, learn from your losses, and remember that the bigger picture is both big and constantly changing.

What did you see today?