Was Saddleback Student Center Worth It?

At a time when one hears nothing good about our educational system, it is indeed heartening to note that the wise burghers of the Saddleback College District have their priorities in order (“Saddleback College Has Student Center at Last,” Sept. 3).

I shudder to think how horrible it must have been for the last 22 years for those poor wretched students to have had to go to different locations to “eat,” “lounge,” “see the school doctor” and “seek financial aid.” Now, of course, they are able to do all of these things plus watch a big-screen television set and play pool, Ping-Pong, and video games without having to “trudge up or down a hill.”

I wonder what the money expended on this $8.2-million video arcade could have been used for in the physics department. Perhaps the English department could have used a little extra funding. Maybe some new computers could have been purchased. Maybe the various department heads could have come up with some ideas?

An awful lot of things can be bought with $8.2 million. I’ll bet that a skillful purchasing agent could have used the taxpayers’ money to buy each student a bicycle and a Nintendo set and still have had most if it left for purchases of equipment and material for the real purposes of education.

Now I am certain that someone will write to explain that this money could only be used for this specific purpose, but if that is the case, then why aren’t the administration and the trustees working on the legislature to change an idiotic law that lets the educational program go wanting while carpeting and air-conditioning the cafeteria?

W.A. KAPPELE

Mission Viejo