TO THE EDITOR:
Sarah Edwards’ column “Not just givers and takers” presents a naive understanding of the views it critiques, and in hastily dismissing those views as illegitimate, it makes an unhelpful contribution to campus discourse.
Leaving aside the author’s simplistic analogizing of Mitt Romney and Art Pope with Ayn Rand, Edwards caricatures a respected, serious reform as limiting college to those “whose parents can pay for it upfront without loans.”
This is a reckless misread of the referenced article by George Leef of the Pope Center for Higher Education. The article distinguishes between loans offered to low-income students and those offered to all, attributing the rise of college tuition only to the latter.
Even more flagrant is the column’s omission of private loans as an alternative to federal aid; no one is seriously proposing that students pay for education exclusively without loans.
It is ironic that the column discusses the author’s economic calculation that a college degree would earn a high paying job in the future; Leef suggests that federal aid and the “higher education bubble” undermine this precise calculation, leading to rising costs.
There are many sides to this complex and deeply important problem, and Leef offers substantial empirical evidence that his well-intended proposal is at least worth consideration rather than a refusal to address his key point.
The larger discourse is better served when authors give serious critiques rather than hide behind a feigned fear that an overwhelmingly liberal university would be harmed by a refreshing conservative influence.
Bryan Weynand
First year
UNC School of Law
