Tell legislators you value education

As a graduate of the University of Iowa and a supporter of our three state universities, I welcomed the March 18 opinion articles on education funding. I can say what the schools' leaders - who have to be “diplomatic” - can't say: The state's continued reduction of support for higher education during the past 10 years is leading to cutbacks that are affecting the quality of the “product,” as well as passing the costs of the reductions on to students themselves.

University of Northern Iowa's closing of several academic departments and the Price Lab School represent but the tip of an iceberg that extends to local levels as well (the closing of Cedar Rapids' Polk Elementary School, for example).

Iowans need to tell their politicians and school boards that they value education and are willing to pay for it, since its societal and economic benefits have been proven many times over. Moreover, we value it just for its own sake, as it affects a student coming from a small town who discovers German or classics or philosophy and has her life changed. Such individual changes, too, feed and enrich society.

I lived in California for years and saw voters there decide that a second (or third) BMW in their garage was more important to them than their kids' education. They got what they wanted. Shame on them. And shame on us if we continue to let the same thing happen here.

Harvey Sollberger

Strawberry Point