Editor,
Our government created the housing bubble by insisting that lenders extend mortgages to low-income buyers. Our policy induced greedy loan practices through the quasi-public companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which backed millions in shaky mortgages. In short, in the name of helping low-income families, we practically do away with "standards" so that everyone, whether they earned it or not, can realize their American dreams. Yes, we should help low-income families, but only those who are helping themselves.
Now how many of us are aware that the sad state of our public education has been wrought by a similar concept prevalent in our school system? For example, is it really desirable for our society that everyone get a college diploma? Even for those students who are ill-prepared and often poorly motivated? Wouldn't it make the college diploma worthless?
Before my retirement, I have seen in calculus classes for science and engineering majors so many college kids who did not know how to add two fractions. Yet the University administrators insisted that professors maintain high retention rates. Whose responsibility is it, the professors or the students, for passing a course? Isn't the insistence upon high retention rates tantamount to a mass production without any quality control? Isn't our approach enforcing the concept of entitlement over the merit of hard works to earn it?
The most disappointing thing about current situations is that people are worried more about the state of economics than that of education.
L.S. Hahn
Retired UNM faculty
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