Letter to the Editor 2, 12-8

To the Editor, In the editorial Dec. 4, titled ‘Education for All,’ you contend that the… To the Editor, In the editorial Dec. 4, titled ‘Education for All,’ you contend that the solution to our education problem is not to ask schools to justify their ridiculous ‘necessary’ spending, but simply subsidize what is already vastly overpriced. What you have is rampant spending by universities nationwide in a bid to attract applicants. But in the very same breath you ask taxpayers to foot the bill for higher education, while on the front page of your paper is justification for salary increases to Pitt faculty in the range of 5 percent. The reasoning is that Pitt can support these raises through donations. But the increasing burden placed on current students will virtually guarantee that their income won’t be increasing at a proportional rate to match what they spend. In virtually every major news source are reports of tremendous sacrifices such as job cuts and sales of assets made by corporate America to realign their spending and budgets with the realities in the markets. We see Detroit pleading for a handout when it was their failed policies, and those of the unions, which lead to their demise. Are we to reward this behavior? Universities across the country are simply spending wildly in the mistaken belief that the automatic spending of students and their families will support such an increase. Socialized education already exists in Allegheny County. Look at the example set by our local schools. Allegheny County has the highest property taxes in the state, all driven by educational spending. When the schools want more money, they just increase local taxes. Is it any wonder that Pittsburgh can’t attract businesses or keep its graduates here? But this doesn’t translate to better education ‘mdash; just look to the Pennsylvania’ System of School Assessment results. Then match that up with teacher salaries to see that Pennsylvania educators are paid exceptionally well compared to other workers for merely average results. Socialism doesn’t work, period. When you divorce risk from reward, you get mediocrity. Education should be a scarce resource, or else you encourage watered-down ‘diploma-lites’ being issued when students don’t challenge themselves because they aren’t paying for it. The real answer to keeping education costs in check is not to let our increasingly large government handle the task, but to force schools from one-upping each other in a massive spending spree that doesn’t further education but looks good to all those prospective freshmen. Peter Owens College of Business Administration