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"Building a Showcase Campus, Using an I.O.U." ("Degrees of Debt" series, front page, Dec. 14) rightly explicates the spending war that afflicts universities, both public and private, across the country. The trend of increased spending on eye-catching facilities that attract prospective students and bolster school ranking is untenable.
But rising tuition at public universities has a more insidious source: decreased funding from state legislatures. As a result of increased spending by university administrators on lavish amenities and decreased funding from state legislatures, a college education is becoming increasing unaffordable. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which I attend, the cost is roughly half of the state's median household income.
There's no panacea for rising tuition at universities across the country, but university administrators must curtail spending and state legislatures must redouble investment in their public universities. Students can afford nothing less.
MIKE BROST
Madison, Wis., Dec. 14, 2012
To the Editor:
Lest "Building a Showcase Campus, Using an I.O.U." mislead readers into thinking that university debt for campus buildings accounts for escalating tuition at public universities, consider the University of California.
Since 1990, the University of California has cut per-student expenditures by 19 percent while state funding per student dropped from $16,720 to $6,770 and students' share of educational costs more than tripled. This huge cost shift to students is due to state budget cuts, not to the university's debt service, which is just 3.5 percent of current operations.
We should not look to scapegoats such as highly paid administrators on building sprees to explain rising tuitions at our indispensable but sadly imperiled public universities, but to ourselves, and to the legislators and governors we elect.
DANIEL MARK FOGEL
Burlington, Vt., Dec. 17, 2012
The writer served as president of the University of Vermont from 2002 to 2011.
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