The Issue: The high cost of a college education and the debt it’s imposing on many students.
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Naomi Schaefer Riley is right to bemoan the obscenely high cost of a college education today (“Predator Student Loans,” PostOpinion, July 23).
Giving “colleges more skin in the game” is sound, but they could be tempted to pass more students through their undergraduate programs so they don’t default.
Administrators could simply pressure professors to lower their already low standards. The result would be more students graduating but fewer prepared to take on the challenges waiting for them outside the safe playground of academia.
To solve the student-debt problem, pressure college administrators and the accrediting agencies to raise standards. Expect more from students, and they will get more for their money. Fewer people will spend their money and time pursuing degrees, when they could be spending it on something better suited to their talents, needs and circumstances.
Giuseppe Butera
Providence, RI
Are we not facing a similar crisis in our higher-education system as we did in our health-care system?
Millions of young Americans are being denied their “basic right” to a higher education. Where is President Obama’s overhaul of the system? Where is the demand for all colleges to provide a higher education for everybody or face fines and penalties? Where is the reduction in professors’ salaries, benefits and pensions to help offset the price of higher education?
Jack Kaufman
Long Beach