Yes, college costs far too much

Re “Who should pay your college bills?” Opinion, Feb. 23

Andrew Policano is completely, abjectly and absurdly wrong: The issue is price. As anyone who is paying tuition knows, the price of a college education has gone up more than 1,000% since 1980.

The cost of four years of tuition at private schools is now the same as the average cost of a home, with almost $100,000 left over to add a few bedrooms.

The real issue is not who is going to pay for education, but why costs have shot up so radically. Education is not 1,000% better than it was 30 years ago. And the salaries of professors are just about the same as they were 30 years ago, when adjusted for inflation.

Any conversation on higher education costs must start with an explanation for why this is and a real effort to not just hold costs, but also substantially cut them. Frank Kosa

Santa Monica