To the editor: Columnist George Skelton is correct to call for supporting college education as an investment in our future. Too many politicians, enterprise leaders and voters are targeted solely on at this time, burning up our hopes of their want to heat their fingers over the ashes.
I’d lengthen Skelton’s suggestion of free tuition to use past simply schools. We desperately want vocational faculties for many who wish to turn into cooks, carpenters and technicians, all important careers that aren’t going away. California ought to help faculties that educate these employees.
Ideally, programs in these faculties would lengthen past the strictly needed topics to incorporate just a few essential subjects helpful in life. For instance, a two-year program may embody required programs in civil society and private finance. This might assist construct an knowledgeable, considerate citizenry ready to adapt to the various modifications which might be inevitable over a lifetime.
Geoff Kuenning, Claremont
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To the editor: A lot of you could not keep in mind, however there was a time within the Nineteen Fifties when you possibly can attend Santa Monica Metropolis School with no tuition.
If you happen to took the proper programs and bought a “C” common, you possibly can get admitted to UCLA, the place there was no tuition and solely $46 in scholar charges, which included a season soccer ticket. This was when UCLA gained a nationwide championship.
The place did we go fallacious?
Ben L. Holmes, Ketchum, Idaho
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To the editor: I agree with Skelton on free tuition. As he notes, a major amount of cash from elevated tuition has been used to fund assist to needy college students. It is a hidden value shift (a tax) onto wealthier households. They’ve quite a few choices for faculty, however excessive enrollment charges of their youngsters are required to generate income.
This explains the arms race to construct new fancy dorms, social facilities and athletic services, which prices each scholar together with these with restricted sources.
Not addressed is four-year commencement charges, which faculties have a tendency to not emphasize in favor of their six-year commencement charges. Colleges with poor fiscal administration minimize corners, and plenty of of their college students, particularly these from lower-income households, can’t get the programs required to graduate on time. So, their mortgage debt grows.
College directors in partnership with our state Legislature have created a hidden tax on the higher courses, whose members truly pay full tuition. Sacramento absolutely wastes greater than the $7.7 billion generated yearly in tuition and costs at state universities.
Howard C. Mandel, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Kudos to Skelton for his column selling free tuition in California. My 4 siblings and I had been fortunate sufficient to have this association once we had been attending faculty.
Our mother and father had been Italian immigrants. The 4 boys turned engineers, and my sister graduated with honors in library science. In return for funding our schooling, the state and nation bought a designer of drones and cruise missiles, a mechanical engineer who helped take photos over Cuba through the missile disaster, a designer of digital amplifiers and a language and library knowledgeable.
What Skelton ought to expose are the outrageous salaries pulled down by the leaders of those faculties. We want a reset of those salaries, and we have to in the reduction of on the actually dozens of vice presidents, vice chancellors and different directors. I noticed the waste firsthand throughout my 30 years at a California State College campus.
Dan Roberto, Pasadena
