To the Editor:

In their letter of October 27, the CAS Forum Executive Board submitted a plea to the Federal Government not to reduce funds available for student loans, especially in the face of rising tuition. However, what they – and many others – likely do not realize is that the increases in tuition are due, in part, to the increasing amount of money made available for aid by the Government. What started as a program to assist students with their tuition payments became a new revenue source for universities to tap: if tuition increases, most students will merely receive the corresponding aid, either in grants or in loans, from the U.S. Government.

Many have bemoaned the ever-increasing cost of higher education and many have wondered why tuition has increased so much faster than inflation. I submit that the availability of federal funds is one nontrivial factor in this increase – which means that one way of curtailing the increase is to reduce federal aid. While this will no doubt be unpleasant in the short-term, in the long-term it may force colleges and universities to plan budgets without quite so much subsidy for the seemingly-bottomless pockets of the federal government – which, in reality, are our pockets. So the increase in costs of college education has become a tax on all of us – and in this time of economic difficulty, all areas of this country – including the Government and Higher Education – need to tighten their proverbial belts.

If I am wrong in my hypothesis, I invite the Administration of Boston University to submit a plot of tuition over time and of expenses over time, and to explain why tuition and expenditures increased so much since federal student aid became available. (While I have no specific numbers for B.U., these increases have taken place almost across-the-board.) I believe that the availability of federal monies contributed to at least some of these increases; I invite the University to argue that I am wrong.

This is not intended as an attack; rather, I seek to prove a point – and I cannot fault Boston University for any of its actions any more than I can fault any other college or university for its actions. Let the intellectual discourse begin…

William Sherwin Graduate Student Department of Physics Boston University —————————————————- Telephone: 617-739-2678 Graduation: Unknown (currently in first-year of post-masters program) Affiliation with subject: I received federal financial aid and I have had numerous discussions with other people on this subject.

If desired by the Editors I would be willing to put a bit more work into this; however, if you wish to contact me by phone, please do not call between about 5:00 on Friday through about 7:00 on Saturday night, as I am an observant Jew…

Thank you.