Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Ravenstahl encourages college seniors to stay in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Thousands of local college seniors received a surprise email Tuesday from Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. The email encouraged the students to stay in Pittsburgh after graduating and reminded them of how much the city has to offer.
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4 comments:
High school seniors should be encouraged to break out. It's hard to leave everything you've known for your whole life and move somewhere new, but it's also extremely rewarding. Pittsburgh is 11 hours away from my hometown by car, and even on the worst days I regard it as one of the best decisions I have ever made. You only live once, and it's important to have as many experiences as you are presented with. The mayor should be encouraging students to do what is best for their own education and own personal benefit, not just blindly recruiting them all as Pittsburgh's future townies.
While I also agree that moving away from the town of your school, it is not the Mayor who is holding back the students in Pittsburgh, it is the schools. The schools should be encouraging their students to go out and do well for themselves and, in turn, for the school. It is the Mayor's job to make Pittsburgh a better city, and part of that is keeping people who will develop and enhance the City of Pittsburgh. This group is educated people, and young educated people are college seniors. The city is doing what is in it's best interest. The schools, however, should be doing what is in the students' best interests since more successful students means a better reputation for the school, and more money from alumni sources (which, if we had that, would means fewer students would be lost because of financial aid because CMU would have a nice endowment). So dear CMU, stop shooting yourself in the foot.
This feels like an odd tactic to me. That the mayor of a relatively large city would be sending these emails to college seniors seems kind of desperate, in a way. It's interesting that such a reach out would be necessary. I don't think there's any wrong in it, in sending the email or in deciding to stay here, since I think it's true that Pittsburgh is a really great place to live and work. There's no harm in Carnegie Mellon supporting the suggestion to stay. I think there is lots of room to be successful in this city. But if you're a senior and it's April, you probably know whether or not you're going to stay here, and an email from the mayor is unlikely to change your mind.
this really rubs me the wrong way. mayor Ravenstahl is the same mayor who tried to tax us for not being “Real” citizens of pittsburgh. this seems like a thinly veiled second try at getting more money out of studiends. i don't think this could ring more untrue. we stopped him from taxing us so now he is trying to get us to stay instead. i would hope for better from a elected official then a cheesy email as a “carrot” after the “stick” didn't work.
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