Not everyone is spoiled

Re “So long, spoiled children,” Opinion, July 10

As a USC student, I agree that the “spoiled children” moniker has truth. Some students here do party much harder than they study. But I do hope that John McCain and everyone else who describes USC as such also notices my under-$2,000 Pontiac squeezed between cars with higher-priced rims.

Maybe he’ll learn I’m a kid from rural Montana with a family income hovering around $20,000 and an expected family contribution of less than the cost of a textbook.

Hopefully, he’ll learn how USC gave me a need-based grant that, along with federal grants, allowed me to attend one of the best engineering schools in the nation.

And when Rob Long suggests that “uniquely spoiled” USC students such as I who worked hard for the chance to escape poverty need “an electoral swirly,” I hope he doesn’t mean cutting public funding for individual students. I would like to be able to graduate.

Daniel Scalese

Los Angeles

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Funny, John McCain didn’t seem to hold USC in such low regard when he gave the commencement speech back in 2004 and accepted an honorary degree.

As for Long’s misguided Op-Ed article suggesting that McCain was right to disparage the school because it’s full of spoiled and entitled brats, I’ve got tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt that suggest otherwise.

Sara Libby

Los Angeles