Making California colleges more expensive; bank ATM fees; problems at L.A. County’s Department of Children and Family Services

Ivory-tower illogic hurts everyone

Re “Make college cost more,” Opinion, Nov. 22

I have to “admire” Shirley V. Svorny’s chutzpah in her call to return public higher education to the rich and well connected. Thanks to California’s Master Plan for Higher Education, college was made available to qualified students irrespective of social class.

Svorny perceives most financial aid/scholarship students as unprepared. My 30 years of teaching experience at an inner-city California State university revealed just the opposite. Students without independent financial means often have to work

part time, and some also have to support families.

The students I taught, many of whom were from poor families, were mostly highly motivated and willing to work hard academically.

Reducing funding for public universities is unsound public policy. It not only makes increasing tuition unattainable for too many otherwise qualified students, it is also egregious and elitist.

Neil Cohen

Cardiff, Calif.

The writer is a professor emeritus at Cal State Los Angeles.

Svorny assumes that the tuition at the California State University system is now easily within reach of most students. It isn’t.

I find it baffling that an economics professor at a Cal State university does not grasp that reality.

Michelle Ferry

Huntington Beach

Young people apply to college because employers demand degrees as part of the escalating paper chase. This reduces the number of applicants hirers have to consider, regardless of whether the job really needs a degree.

The solution to Svorny’s problem is for universities to reject applicants who are not qualified. One wonders why they don’t.

Rory Johnston

Hollywood

It is unbelievable that a professor of economics would think colleges should raise fees in this time of economic crisis, even if it would reduce the number of unmotivated students. The only effect would be to reduce the number of poor students. It would do nothing to improve the motivation of students.

If you want to reduce the number of unmotivated students, stop dumbing-down classes. Let the unmotivated students flunk out.

Wendy Velasco

Whittier

Withdrawal symptoms

Re “ATM fees need to be kept in check,” Business, Nov. 23

This is just about the right-size problem for our government to deal with:

$3 ATM fees.

The government cannot agree that people who work full time should be able to provide for their families and have access to decent and affordable healthcare and education. Maybe it can get its hands around this issue.

Kevin Minihan

Los Angeles

I am reminded of the time I accidentally used my Chase credit card at the ATM and was dinged $25 to borrow $500. To add insult to injury, Chase charged interest. I didn’t need to borrow the money, and I didn’t realize what I had done it until my credit card statement arrived.

Because it was my fault, I didn’t pursue a refund, but I certainly felt “held up” for more than $30.

Hannah R. Kuhn

Simi Valley

Work to reform the DCFS

Re “To protect the children,” Editorial, Nov. 21

L.A. County social workers are serious about fixing the child welfare system.

As The Times noted in a Nov. 12 article, social workers were “one of the first entities to raise the alarm” in March about a serious backlog in emergency response. Through our union, we are now meeting weekly with the county CEO’s office to address the lack of consistency across 18 offices, the need for training and to immediately address the backlog.

Headline-grabbing cases have led The Times and some in public office to say the solution is tougher discipline for social workers, not tough system reform. We have recognized that the problems in the department are systemic, and the headlines have dramatized the family suffering that social workers witness daily. It’s time for action.

Larry Golan

Chino Hills

Mike Ross

Rancho Cucamonga

Tony Bravo

Alhambra

Blanca Gomez

Rosemead

The writers are children’s social workers.

The Times welcomes the “easing out” of Trish Ploehn, under whose direction children cared for by the county’s Department of Children and Family Services have died, are “left in squalid conditions” or are “otherwise mistreated.” The Times states she is “by all accounts a devoted county employee.”

Excuse me? What do you have to do not to be called devoted? Kill someone yourself?

We should all be outraged. No one should be left off the hook — not the Board of Supervisors, not Ploehn, not her staff. Ploehn no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt. She deserves to be out.

Eileen Flaxman

Los Angeles

A definition

Re “A papal surprise,” Editorial, Nov. 23

The Times’ editorial on the pope’s comments about condom use skimps on the definition of the principle of double effect. Following the editorial’s shorthand definition — an action with an immoral effect can be permissible if it also has a good effect — one could say that the evil effect of shooting the driver of another vehicle might be permissible because of the good effect of reducing traffic.

The principle of double effect, as set forth by St. Thomas Aquinas, is far more conditional in terms of which effects can be permitted. The principle holds that an evil effect can be allowed so long as it is not directly intended, is not the means of achieving a good effect and is not disproportionate to the good effect.

Tod M. Tamberg

Los Angeles

The writer is media relations director, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Good START

Re “A treaty we need,” Nov. 21

Sen. Dianne Feinstein is right to call for immediate ratification of the New START nuclear arms reduction agreement.

A core benefit of the New START treaty is its potential for improving U.S.-Russian relations. The agreement will lead to accelerated U.S.-Russian cooperation on a whole range of critical security issues, from curbing Iran’s nuclear weapons program to easing the transport of urgently needed equipment to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. And it will make it easier to enhance

cooperation on securing “loose nukes” and nuclear bomb-making material to keep it out of the hands of terrorists.

For these reasons, as well as the ones cited by Feinstein, the Senate should ratify New START before the end of the year.

William D. Hartung

New York

The writer is director of the New America Foundation’s arms and security initiative.