OPINION:
I read your article on Hillary Clinton’s latest vote-grubbing idea to impose higher taxes and harder work on the rest of us in order to pay for college for those she believes deserve a free ride (“Hillary Clinton to propose $350 billion college affordability plan,” Web, Aug. 10). I have an alternate, proven idea.
I attended a community college my freshman year and commuted from home (my parents were nice enough to let me stay put). I took a 12-semester-hour load (four classes, considered full-time) and worked 36-39 hours a week, which was easy enough then, in 1980, and still possible with proper planning. My final three-and-a-half years I attended a state university about 40 miles away, either commuting from home or sharing an apartment near campus with a friend. I also worked eight-hour days Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. I was driving a furniture truck for a mom-and-pop retail furniture store in my hometown, making $6.50 an hour.
I never took out a single student loan. I never applied for any type of government grant or subsidy, and frankly Mensa International wasn’t knocking down my door to give me a scholarship.
Nothing is free. I busted my rear end — I invite you to unload an 18-wheeler during August in East Texas — to pay for college. While Mrs. Clinton’s idea to make people pay for the college education of children who aren’t theirs or require a laughable 10 hours of work per week for these kids so they can ’contribute’ to their own education may be a socialist’s dream, it makes me cringe. In our republic, if you want it bad enough, you can make it happen. I did.
RANDALL STEPHENS
Falls Church
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