Jan Dolcater is certainly right that we should respect those who work in the skilled trades and choose not to go to college.  There is honest, well compensated work that does not require a college degree.  But Dolcater’s article is riddled with factual errors that would fail a high school course.  To demonstrate the “skyrocketing cost of college,” he lists the published “sticker” prices of several Maine colleges and universities.  He neglects to mention that hardly anyone pays those prices – because of the substantial financial aid these institutions offer.  

Since 2011, the federal government has required every college and university to publish the “net price” to enroll: the average price that a student will pay once family income and financial aid are considered.  Thus, Colby College’s sticker price may be $68,582, but the net price is $20,361 (less than a third of his claim), as he could easily have found.  The net price for each and every college or university he mentions is thousands of dollars less than the sticker price he quotes.  

Yes, a college education is expensive, and we should do more to make college affordable for all who choose to pursue higher education.  But one among many reasons to do so is to ensure that our civic issues are discussed with honest information.  

If the group of “conservative Midcoast citizens” who write “Another View” in The Times Record show this little regard for honest information, they’ll flunk journalism. 

Douglas C. Bennett, 

Topsham