Letter to the Editor

Editor:
There’s been heated debate over President Biden’s student debt relief for low- and middle-income college borrowers. Discussions sometimes revolve around faculty salaries or the high cost of college, but the issue begging attention is America’s ambivalent feelings about education.

The severe national teacher shortage is one symptom of that. While people have grown accustomed to expensive medical bills, which they expect will be paid by insurance or government, they also think schooling should be inexpensive.

According to a Lending Tree study conducted in 2021, salaries for university faculty, when adjusted for inflation, have increased a mere 9.5% in the past 50 years. The same study notes a 3.1% increase in wages at publicly supported universities.

Most college costs have skyrocketed due to a staggering increase in administrators, reduced state funding (check out the small percentage of Penn State’s funding that comes from the state), and improved amenities, such as student fitness centers, designed to attract a shrinking number of college-bound students in this competitive environment. (An educated populace increases our tax base and reduces welfare.)

Meantime, when adjusted for inflation, schoolteachers nationwide have experienced a 4% drop in wages. At the same time, school shootings have increased; public school board meetings have become increasingly hostile; schoolteachers are coping with more family dysfunction; and debates rage about what teachers teach and how they teach it—usually without input from teachers themselves.

Josh Shapiro knows an educated populace is crucial to Pennsylvania’s future and he supports fair and equitable state funding.

William Rothwell
Port Matilda