Piped in classical music drifts across the campus, the dorms are furnished

Piped in classical music drifts across the campus, the dorms are furnished with plasma flat-screen TVs. There’s a first-run movie theater and a steak house. Also at High Point University, in High Point, N.C. — “Bubble U,” as Bloomberg Business Week has dubbed the 3-year-old Methodist Church-affiliated private liberal arts college — an ice cream truck stands always at the ready.Free snacks are available between classes, and there’s even valet parking. And oh yes, did we mention that every student gets a hand-delivered birthday card and Starbucks gift card on his or her birthday? How precious — and it’s all yours (tuition, room and board) for $39,800 year.By comparison, University of Washington students are a bunch of lunch-bucket juggalos, wondering where their next can of spam is coming from.Now, at Long Island University in Brookville, N.Y., iPads are given to all incoming freshman, while at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., houses are known to host regular tea-parties and candlelit dinners with faculty. And how about that required $6,390 meal plan at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine? For that, hungry students can chow down on a typical entree that includes shrimp cakes, spicy tomato chutney, and smoked haddock in cream sauce — finnan haddie, it’s called.All the while at poor UW, the specter of losing $83 million (that’s a lot of birthday cards and plasma TVs) in federal funding is becoming a more ominous prospect if the $85 billion in federal sequestration cuts go into effect tomorrow.As The Seattle Times reports, “Grant money for science research might become more scarce. Young scientists might have a harder time finding jobs. Under one scenario, entire labs could close.”There will be jobs lost,” said Mary Lidstrom, the UW’s vice provost for research. “This is all about jobs.”Developmental neurobiologist Corey Snelson, who’s studying embryonic muscle development in the UW’s biochemistry department, told The Times that she fears she’ll be unemployed when her temporary job comes to an end June 30.”It’s a been a tense time here for a lot of people,” said Snelson, who has a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. If her funding is cut, Snelson is thinking she may to return to Maryland and live with her parents.As for us at The Daily Weekly, why we’re heading to High Point U.