Another delightful Oxbridge/American Universities debate

It's not as simple as that: http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/05computations.shtml

Even as an economics major, I won't pretend to know what that means. However, I must point out that different regions of the United States are relatively "wealthier" than others. For example, to buy a small house in California, you need to pay an average of 600,000 dollars. In the South you can pay 200,000 for a large house. The cost of living differs among these regions. It's just not that simple.

It's only alaska and hawaii where there are different poverty thresholds because the cost of living is higher. All the table you've given shows is how they've calculated the new guidelines.

And as for you talking about our tax cuts. This is one of the key issues dividing the Democrats and the Republicans. Bush is a Republican--his interests are in the wealthier people. However, you must think of the rationale in this. Wealthier people have more money to spend; more money to spend in the economy--invisible hand theory.

As for your government--frankly I think it has some issues in dealing with this newfound socialism. When I was there, so many people were living in council housing--especially teenage mothers who were encouraged not to marry in order to benefit from the government. Trying to "equalize" the citizens does not mean creating a class solely dependent on welfare.

That's not true. Alaska and Hawaii? Hah..talk about California. Honestly, my parents live in separate states and their costs of living differ dramatically, even when they are only a couple of states apart.

For Alaska and Hawaii, where the cost of living is traditionally believed to be significantly higher than in other states, scaling factors of 1.25 and 1.15, respectively, are applied to the 2005 guideline for a family of four for the 48 contiguous states, and the results (if not already a multiple of $10) are rounded upward to the nearest whole multiple of $10

Nah. I've only taken one economics course. (I am also a history major.) But I was taking my mathematics and statistics requirements as well as worthless breadth requirements. But ask me again once I've completed my next economics course. I have a long way to go before I graduate.

And I play the piano (for 12 years) and sing opera (for 6 years) da*n it..not the harmonica.

awww, and you don't have one do you

hmm i don't know i didn't apply to HYP...

not really insecurity as much as ambitious and wanting everything

Copenhagen University is the best university, speaking academically.... It's reputation is perhaps not widespread, but a Danish education is the best education.

i know this is going to sound unjustified, but i get really annoyed at people trying to prove each other right/wrong all the time (personally, it seems a little more petty than a debate)
Why can't you just agree to disagree?

The whole oxbridge/harvard thing is completely immeasurable. most (about 99.9% of) people in britain couldn't give a flying **** about international league tables, and so it just stirs things up (unnecessarily) when people start slating oxbridge/the british system in favour of another one (eg. usa). The systems are so different! Perhaps oxbridge get fewer applicants than harvard purely because those unlikely to get an offer (eg predictions of BBB) don't normally apply.
(Don't tear this post apart with statistics, please.)

Sorry if i have caused any offence / claims that i can't legitimately 'back up' with pdf files full of stats.

I will say one thing, though: Oxford and Cambridge are older