The Florida Times-Union editorial about the 7.5% increase in tuition for Florida's universities sent me over the top. Don't get me wrong. In my family of origin, everyone values education. Everyone graduates from college. Most attend graduate school. But as a parent of two children graduating from college this year, I have a growing concern. The problem is that too many colleges and universities are not living in the same intellectual, and market-driven world as the rest of us. Perhaps the widespread availability and use of student loans has blinded them. So has the prevalence of politically-correct views on campus.

The rest of us had to battle our way through the post-9/11 economic crunch by cutting back or changing jobs. Not higher education. Instead, my own Alma mater sends out a self-congratulatory letter informing all alumni that tuition is "only" rising by 5.5% in the coming year. Similar letters went out each year of the economic slowdown. Apparently colleges and universities are exempt from economic realities. Another letter also tells me that the tens of thousands of dollars I send then each year only pays for "a portion" of the college's education costs, as they ask for more money. Then there is the inevitable phone call from a perky college student asking for a contribution to the "parents fund." My response? Sorry. You already have all my money. Perhaps for all the money I am sending these institutions of higher learning, they could manage to send me a copy of my 18-year old's grades? Sorry, they tell me, that information is reserved for them and the student.

Intellectually, too many professors are more interested in left wing politics than honest, even-handed, vigorous debate. Like the UNF English professor who began several classes last fall with an anti-Bush tirade. What this had to do with English I fail to see. Or Nancy Hopkins, the MIT biology professor, who on hearing Harvard President Larry Summers speculate on gender differences in cognition, claimed "his bias made me physically ill. "Is this what honest debate does to university professors?

It is high time the university campus rejoin the real world where costs mean something and ideas have to compete for a place at the table. The people who pay the bills are watching and expect better things in the years ahead. If you think your monopoly is sacrosanct, I have two words for you. Mainstream media.

  John Pendleton