Letters: College cost | Housing policy

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High cost of college
hurts students, families

I am for student debt relief, but the program announced Wednesday does not address the astronomical cost of college.

Having three children in college during the pandemic I was astounded at why the tuition was the same given that colleges were delivering remote education. My daughter started her senior year at UC Berkeley yesterday. I phoned her and inquired, “So this will be like freshman year, with everything in person?” She said, “I only have one in-person class and it is a lab.” So for $40,000 a year, fully loaded with room, board, tuition and fees, my daughter has one class. She could be commuting and living at home. What kind of college experience is this?

Universities have learned to save money with remote education, and charge higher prices while having their fee structure propped up through billions in COVID-19 relief. This reinforcement cycle is hurting students and the families supporting them.

Andrea Bloom
Pleasanton

Racist housing policy
draws little notice

There is a private, off-campus housing co-op near UC Berkeley that has declared that “White guests are not allowed in common spaces.” I’d like to know why this has not been reported on in local media. I actually had to find this out from the NY Post via Reddit. Also, why have our local legal establishments not taken this to heart?

You can be sure that had the words Hispanic, Asian or Black been substituted for the word White in the referenced rule that the ACLU and one or more DAs would be screaming foul and filing suit. In the referenced article a renter of mixed race had his White father denied access.

ACLU, Fair Housing, etc – where are you? If discrimination is wrong, isn’t reverse discrimination is wrong as well?

Robert Drury
Fremont

Column twists climate
statistics into lies

Re. “IRA won’t reduce inflation or affect climate change,” Page A7, Aug. 25:

Usually, Marc Thiessen’s writing is, to steal a phrase from his August 25 column, “statistically indistinguishable from” lies. But in that same column, he comes alarmingly close to stating an important fact.

Thiessen quotes climate skeptic Bjorn Lomborg, who says, “Even if the U.S. went … to net-zero … it would reduce global temperatures in 2100 by just 0.3 degrees F.”

Yes, it’s important to know that the United States cannot solve the climate crisis by itself. But does that mean to Thiessen (or Lomborg) that we should do nothing? Of course not. We need to act, as does the rest of the world, and as a leading polluter, our action should help spur everybody else to do their share as we are now doing ours.

A 3-degree reduction would be very beneficial and only 10 times Lomborg’s unachievable American contribution. With others following the American example, the world can get there.

Merlin Dorfman
Livermore