Education costs

Your editorial criticizing the Biden Administration for the “fiasco” that has hindered the operations of its college student aid program makes a valid point about bureaucratic blunders.

However, you miss an even more important – indeed, stunning – point. The soaring costs of higher education would be stopped in its tracks, and tuition would be cut by more than half, if 90% of the bureaucrats were fired. How and why the modern administrative university came into being if a matter of some contention. I  offered a couple of theories in my 1998 book entitled “The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses.” One can dispute how and why our campuses are plagued by administrative bloat. But what cannot rationally be denied is the huge cost of maintaining an army with no serious mission.

The solution? Fire the bureaucrats. It’s that simple.

Harvey  A.  Silverglate

Cambridge

2024 election

Now that the battle for the presidency is joined, voters will have the opportunity to compare the candidates for president and vice-president and their backgrounds and positions on the issues.  Most polls at this time indicate that the economy / inflation and the border problems are of paramount concern.  The record of each side is both obvious and telling.

Because the legacy media will continue to be activists in support of the Democrat ticket, I’ll limit my contrary comments to the Biden-Harris administration failings that have produced for the American people one of the most harmful sets of economic circumstances in the past half century with huge increases in the cost of living across the board: gas, food, insurance, mortgage rates, homes, cars, etc.  The horrendous situation with our borders is well documented.  Reading mostly from teleprompters, Kamala Harris has taken certain “moderate” positions that require voters to ignore her political lifetime of left-wing progressive words and actions. Her hypocrisy is breathtaking to say nothing of her well-demonstrated incompetency as President Biden’s “last person in the room” at decision time.

As for Tim Walz, he is presented to us as an avuncular Midwesterner when he is self-described as a “progressive” and has publicly spoken about his affection for socialism.  The Harris-Walz ticket is the most left-wing presidential political coupling in memory.  Because a large majority of Americans tell various pollsters that the country is headed in the wrong direction, to right the ship of state the Trump-Vance team is the logical corrective.

Brian J. Sullivan

North Reading