Letters, Sept. 9, 2010: Career colleges; Religious tolerance; and Election lawsuit supported
Career colleges benefit students
Editor:
Your editorial "Students Beware: Unscrupulous Colleges" (Aug. 28), raises valid points around the issue of dishonest practices related to career colleges. However, our concern is that while you have addressed the legitimate and unfortunate consequence of the bad actors within the sector, the editorial fails to note the benefits the vast majority of career colleges provide to students who might otherwise be left behind.
Similarly, the Department of Education's proposed "Gainful Employment" rule creates a false perception that career colleges cost American taxpayers significantly more for student education than their not-for-profit counterparts. Readers should know that by comparison, career colleges receive far less in government support than public and private not-for-profit institutions, and they are the only institutions that pay state and local taxes, contributing nearly $1 billion to tax revenues in 2008.
As career colleges like The Art Institute of Pittsburgh help more Americans gain access to higher education, it's important to recognize the critical role our institutions have in expanding America's education capacity and in building the nation's economic strength.
While I am fully supportive of efforts to improve students' ability to pay down their loans, a one-size-fits-all formula that disproportionately targets programs serving career-focused students is the wrong approach.
Your editorial, and the DOE's proposed rule, measures the performance of an entire sector of higher education based on the egregious actions of very few. I would encourage you to consider the negative implications for those of us who offer a quality, career-focused education to students who are underserved.
George W. Sebolt
President
The Art Institute
of Pittsburgh
We need to show tolerance of religion
Editor:
Career colleges benefit students
Editor:
Your editorial "Students Beware: Unscrupulous Colleges" (Aug. 28), raises valid points around the issue of dishonest practices related to career colleges. However, our concern is that while you have addressed the legitimate and unfortunate consequence of the bad actors within the sector, the editorial fails to note the benefits the vast majority of career colleges provide to students who might otherwise be left behind.
Similarly, the Department of Education's proposed "Gainful Employment" rule creates a false perception that career colleges cost American taxpayers significantly more for student education than their not-for-profit counterparts. Readers should know that by comparison, career colleges receive far less in government support than public and private not-for-profit institutions, and they are the only institutions that pay state and local taxes, contributing nearly $1 billion to tax revenues in 2008.
As career colleges like The Art Institute of Pittsburgh help more Americans gain access to higher education, it's important to recognize the critical role our institutions have in expanding America's education capacity and in building the nation's economic strength.
While I am fully supportive of efforts to improve students' ability to pay down their loans, a one-size-fits-all formula that disproportionately targets programs serving career-focused students is the wrong approach.
Your editorial, and the DOE's proposed rule, measures the performance of an entire sector of higher education based on the egregious actions of very few. I would encourage you to consider the negative implications for those of us who offer a quality, career-focused education to students who are underserved.
George W. Sebolt
President
The Art Institute
of Pittsburgh
We need to show tolerance of religion
Editor:
We live in a world which desperately needs people of all nationalities and religions to reach out to each other in a search for peace and tolerance. Yet too often they are out shouted by those who are consumed by hatred and fear. Thus the Imam Rauf and others who propose a mosque and Islamic Culture Center with an interfaith board and programming similar to a YMCA are being vilified. Four times the State Department has sent Rauf to the Mideast to promote tolerance and inter-cultural friendship. Two of those trips were in 2007 during the Bush administration. Rauf routinely denounces terrorism and stridently rejects jihadism. "His vision of Islam is bin Ladin's nightmare."
To the opponents it doesn't matter that the site is not at Ground Zero or even on the edge of it but two very long blocks away with the view entirely blocked by tall buildings. Nor does it matter that the mosque would replace a 30-year-old overcrowded one just 10 blocks away. How far is far enough? These opponents seem to forget that individuals of all religions were victims of 9/11 including many Muslims who share our grief. They cannot accept the fact that we need to show the world that we really are what we profess to be: a nation whose people truly believe in freedom of religion.
Dorothy Wehrle Guest Dixon
Charleston
Lawsuit over election supported
Editor:
On Aug. 10 an article appeared in the Gazette titled, "Lawsuit threatened over gubernatorial vacancy." The story stated that Thornton Cooper, a South Charleston attorney, intends to take legal action to require a timely special election to fill the unexpired term for governor - in the event that Gov. Joe Manchin wins election to the U.S. Senate this fall.
I applaud Mr. Cooper for his endeavor!
According to the article, although West Virginia law requires that an acting governor hold a special election if there is more than one year remaining in the unexpired gubernatorial term, it doesn't specify any specific time for the election. That would mean that Earl Ray Tomblin, D-Logan, would become an unelected governor for nearly two years, and the state voters would be recurrently electing a new governor for 2012. It is a crazy situation!
There is an appreciation for people like Thornton Cooper.
Mitzi Kellogg
Charleston
