University of Oregon President Richard Lariviere, in critiquing the decline in public-education funding, neglects a couple of important facts ("Saving Public Universities, Starting With My Own," op-ed, Nov. 23).
First, government subsidies have inflated college costs far above the rate of inflation.
Second, and more importantly, for three decades state universities have undermined the society funding them. After decades of de-constructing the mores of the culture that built state colleges, only the hubris of professors would insist the society they despise pay their salaries.
Some well-heeled American citizens will fund endowments—if they get the credit. But few of the working class, few of the people who make this country great and still believe in it, will voluntarily underwrite the salaries of radicals who have little good to say about America.
Dan Nygaard
Fort Collins, Colo.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 