The Chicago Star Scholarship program, which provides grants to eligible students to attend the city’s community colleges, is being funded by savings that the City Colleges of Chicago will have to find year in and year out to offset the loss of receiving tuition from these eligible incoming students.

The Tribune would be doing its readers a service in breaking down how many potential students will qualify for these grants and to further identify the cost savings City Colleges will come up with to fully fund this program. 

If there are enough savings to perpetuate this grant program then there is a real problem in the City Colleges budgeting and spending programs.  Are we to assume there have been so much waste, fraud, corruption and cronyism that it will miraculously disappear and become the funding source for years on end?

There are several bridges in Chicago I'd like to sell the Tribune.  Can someone do the math before touting this eventual boondoggle on taxpayers of Chicago, and in...

Once Christmas and New Year observances are over, a let-down feeling sets in. Gone are the lovely multicolored lights on the Christmas trees and various outdoor decorations. All the joy and anticipation of expected gifts and reunions are over, and we feel sad.

We should adjust our attitude and instead of sadness be happy about the memories we just created. Without our memories, life would be bleak.

What would it be like to suffer from amnesia? Just think of how it would be not to be able to remember your wedding day, the birth of a child, his or her first word or step. You can think of many other events and instances in your life that you like to relive over and over again in your mind.

So instead of being sad that something is over, be glad it happened at all. While it is sad to think of the holiday season being over, concentrate instead on the new memories we will create in the coming months.

— Mil Misic, DeKalb

With the price of oil dropping, we do not need to promote more drilling for gas and oil. Many oil/fracking companies are beginning to lay off workers because the cost of drilling is more than the price of crude oil. Rails are enough now to send the oil to refineries. We need to save oil for future generations and prevent global warming and air pollution.

We do not need the Keystone pipeline at this time.

— Norma Friedemann, Evanston

Advocates of the Keystone pipeline tout its so-called American benefits — employment, effusion of money to communities along its route and possibly cheaper gas. Employment and effusion of money would be very temporary, and cheaper gas for Americans is a pipe dream.

This is very expensively made Canadian oil, and its true benefit is not for the Americans.

— John Corona, Niles

I’m a fifth grader; football is my favorite sport. Sometimes some of my favorite games are on weeknights, and I can’t always watch them because I have school the next day. I can handle that — unless it’s the best game of the year! Most of last Monday’s game was played after my bedtime.

Can the College Football Playoff Committee please change the game time to a better time when kids like me can watch it?

The Super Bowl is on a Sunday but begins earlier than the college championship game did.

It’s not fun to miss the biggest game of the year. I don’t want to just check the final score the next day. Sports are fun to follow and watch. The grown-ups in charge should keep that in mind when they plan the times of the biggest games of the year!

— Jack Henrichs, La Grange

I suppose that even rich people need a hobby, but, c'mon: Mitt running for president is sounding like an obsession.

— Tom Witte, Batavia