UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
Attending will remain costly on a net basis
Any enthusiastic support for the University of Minnesota's decision to freeze undergraduate tuition ("Regents, students like U tuition relief," June 6) is grossly premature. This initiative fails to address the real problem, that being the net cost of attending the university.
Freezing tuition will not necessarily decrease the average debt load. Rather, undergraduates will continue to owe $20,000-plus on average at graduation time.
In addition, the university's financial aid packages are significantly lower than those offered by other state and private higher-education institutions, as experienced by the high school seniors I used to teach.
Many of my poorer students were forced to take their general courses at lower-cost community colleges simply because the net cost of attending the U was way out of reach. Also, many of my students received much better net-cost arrangements from some of Minnesota's more-prestigious private colleges.
Our legislators ought to investigate the net cost of learning at the U rather than the gross cost, especially when they compare financial-aid arrangements made to poorer Minnesota residents as opposed to out-of-state students.
The university's bias against poorer students is also demonstrated every year when officials at the Twin Cities and Duluth campuses refuse to participate in the no-fee Application Week for Minnesota high school seniors. Almost all other Minnesota colleges — public and private — gladly participate.
Howard W. Schwartz, Golden Valley
* * *
TSA RULES
Motives of Congress appear inconsistent
We seem to live in a paradoxical world. "In the face of fierce congressional and industry opposition," the Transportation Security Administration has scrapped its plan to loosen restrictions for airplane carry-on items ("TSA cancels plan to let knives, bats on planes," June 6).
The congressional opposition is particularly curious, because this is the same Congress that could not muster the courage to pass legislation to slow the proliferation of guns in our neighborhoods.