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Editorials

Affordability

Though a well-trained, well-educated and skilled workforce is more important than ever, students seeking a higher education to prepare them for their careers are having a harder time being able to afford it. Sure, many people still believe having a college degree will translate to higher earnings, but students are increasingly challenged to decide whether the expense of that education (or the long-term debt they may incur) is worth the risk. According to WalletHub, the cost of attending a four-year public college has risen by an average of 30% over the past 20 years. And that cost ...

Protection

Parents and guardians cannot receive reminders often enough about the urgent need to prepare kids for staying safe online. Local residents got an alarming one this week with news that Steven James Boose, 35, of Littlestown, Pa., had been arrested after allegedly traveling to Parkersburg to meet with a person he believed to have been a 14-year-old girl, with whom he’d been corresponding online. Parkersburg Police met up with him, instead, and Boose has been charged with one count of soliciting a minor and six counts of use of obscene matter with intent to seduce a minor. And the ...

Instability

As the weather gets colder and snow mixes with the drifting leaves, most of us are grateful for the knowledge that a cozy home awaits us at the end of a long day. But thousands of West Virginians are experiencing both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness — and according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, their number is growing. Meanwhile, a SchoolHouse Connection report for 2024-25 estimated more than 15,000 students do not have a stable place to sleep — and those are just the ones that have come to the attention of the public school ...

Health and Safety

As West Virginians watched for news of the trapped foreman of a mining crew in an Alpha Metallurgical Resources mine in Nicholas County, just days after learning of the death of another miner in an accident at a Mettiki Coal mine in Tucker County, the health and safety of our coal miners was brought back into our collective minds. For the miners themselves, a renewed fight over their health has been brewing for months, as an Associated Press report over the weekend delved into the fight to get the Trump administration and the U.S. Department of Labor to stop rolling back or delaying ...

Post-Pandemic

“Women have fallen behind in the (post-pandemic) return-to-office push, reflecting the barriers they can still hit when juggling careers and families, even after decades of workplace gains.” That was the observation of the Wall Street Journal in a report in its Oct. 25-26 edition. The message within that paragraph is that, although women’s pay has experienced a decline, when stacked against men’s, it is not due to intentional, gross, beefed-up unfairness — less pay for the same work — on the part of companies toward them. Rather, it is the unfortunate impact of ...

Rural Health

“We have to get to work to improve health outcomes,” Gov. Patrick Morrisey said in Parkersburg last week during the latest round of stops to spread his messages in every corner of the state. This time, he was touting the state’s application for money through the federal Rural Health Transformation Program. On that day, he travelled to Moundsville and Fairmont as well for similar appearances. If federal officials approve the request, the Mountain State could receive more than $100 million per year for five years to expand health care access, improve healthcare quality and remove ...