3 parts of the ‘dirty little secret’
In her recent op-ed Maria Bucur (“US is in danger of losing one of its biggest trade surpluses: Higher education”) unwittingly revealed the dirty little secret behind the proliferation of international students at U.S. universities in three different phrases:
1. “Attracting enormous amounts of dollars,”
2. “People pay good money,”
3. “Spending large sums of money.”
That’s what it’s ALWAYS been about.
Michael Mangarelli, Bloomington
Tell elected officials to save needed programs
I’m a psychotherapist charged with helping people with issues like anxiety and depression. Some of my low-income clients already have trouble paying rent, utilities, and food costs despite currently receiving help from government programs. This drives their anxiety and depression through the roof.
If current proposals are enacted to cut government spending on Medicaid, SNAP benefits (aka food stamps), housing assistance, and energy assistance, I don’t know how some of them will continue to live. Our country needs to do better than this.
Please let your elected officials, Rep. Erin Houchin and Sens. Todd Young and Jim Banks, know that these programs need to be saved.
Stephen Arnold, Bloomington
Living graduates of IU deserve to hear from president, trustees
Why have the president and board of trustees of Indiana University been silent on the bombshell state legislation that has eliminated the right of the university’s alumni graduates to elect trustees?
Gov. Mike Braun signed the measure hidden inside the state budget bill and voted on by the Legislature without an opportunity for the public to discuss and react to it. A despicable way to operate government of the people.
Ever since the revelation of the legislation in late April, IU President Pam Whitten and the trustees have said nothing about it. Why? Were they in favor of it? Did they help write it? Did they push back and make their position known to the governor and Legislature?
If they opposed the bill, why wouldn’t they tell the alumni they stood up for a right that was in effect for ONE HUNDRED THIRTY FOUR YEARS? Alumni have given billions of dollars to IU (more than $165 million in 2024) and volunteered in innumerable ways of service in nearly every aspect of university life, and yet their right to elect three of the nine trustees has been terminated. The approximate 800,000 living graduates of IU deserve comments from university leadership.
Ken Beckley, BloomingtonFormer president and CEO IU Alumni Association
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Letters: Higher education’s ‘dirty little secret,’ government program funds, IU trustees
Reporting by The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
