Dear Senator Durban,

I read of your concern for the welfare of college students.
I share many of your concerns and applaud your efforts. Last year
a physics student who had been in one of my math courses was running
up and down the hallways in a panic. He needed a car. His was broken.
He had three jobs, and if he could not get a car he would lose two
of his jobs. This would cause him not only to drop out of school but 
render him unable to make the payments to his grandmother's nursing home.

But the issues around federal (and state) funding for those pursuing 
higher education are rather paradoxical. At my university the number one 
major is "Workforce Education and Development," with 1218 students. 
This program is housed in the College of Education and aims to prepare its 
students to become high school shop and home econ teachers. (It also has 
options in fashion and office work.) Meanwhile there are fewer than 20 
physics majors.  In math we have about 60 majors, most of whom are 
prospective high school teachers. Do we really need 20 shop/home econ 
teachers for every math teacher? (Physical education has about 200 majors, 
but they are phasing out the P.E. Ph.D. program.)

My concern is that we (the taxpayers) are subsidizing students without
regard to the rigor or utility of the programs they are in. If we were not
subsidizing so many shop/home ec/PE teachers (does one even need a B.A.
to teach in these areas?) the physics student I mentioned above might
be fully supported. Are we spreading ourselves too thin? It is clear
that "fewer but better" will not win any votes. But, somehow we should
start to judge our educational system on how quickly we prepare people
for the real world instead of how long we keep them institutionalized.  

In the 1980's I went on a tour of East Germany. My tour guides were very proud
of the socialist system. But there were some problems they pointed out. For 
example, the price of bread was subsidized to such an extent that farmers 
bought bread to feed their chickens instead of chicken feed. The bread 
subsides were very popular. Everyone, including the chicken farmers, liked 
this program. Yet it was clearly a wasteful and irrational use of resources. 
They never did find a way to resolve this. I do not have any answers either.

Mike Sullivan
Assoc. Prof. of Mathematics
SIU Carbondale
msulliva@math.siu.edu