Out of Touch?

With everyone's mind on the economy, readers sound off on extravagant home decor, the rising cost of tuition, and why it pays to go to a women's college.

Out of Touch?

Marni Katz's article ("Is Your Sofa In -- or Out?" October 12) only goes to show that kitchen designers have never worked in a kitchen, at least not to produce actual food. To deprive a serious cook of upper cabinets is a typical example of designer sadism. The stuff you don't use is inevitably relegated to the base cabinets, which are so much harder to get to. And did it even occur to anyone that counter overhangs serve a useful purpose? It's much easier to scrape scraps into a waste basket if the basket can be placed under the counter overhang. But I suppose that people who have $5,000 counters have servants to attend to that, or else they eat out every night.

Mary Ann Clawson

Northampton

While October 12's Sunday Globe is all about the crashing stock market, the Globe Magazine of the same date describes homes on sale for $2 million and $4.15 million, a men's $1,395 cotton-blend jacket, the good life at the Ritz-Carlton Towers (Page 32) and on Beacon Hill, bathroom sinks starting at $4,800 and tubs for $15,015, and where the rich and famous slept. Someone here out of touch?

Daniel Gadish

Boston

Editor's Note: The financial crisis hit after the October 12 Your Home issue had gone to press. We reacted as quickly as we could with our cover story by Charles P. Pierce ("Torn Up") on October 19.

Cost Therapy

Jon Marcus spells out how parents and students across the nation are destined to pay more without any regulations on colleges and universities ("Up, Up, and Away!" October 5). The universities' desire to acquire property and bloat salaries and endowments is literally sending many American families to the poor house. Hollow promises of reining in spending and holding down costs at these institutions is only further eroding the American dream. In these cash-strapped times, individuals have no choice but to put off those big purchases. Why should it be any different for colleges or universities?

Robert Damatin

Dorchester

I have a son who is a sophomore in college and I am grief-stricken at the cost of college these days. We all want a better education for our children, or at least the same education that we received, but we just can't afford it. Schools don't seem to get it. They are all about "bling." Frankly, I don't care if a university has a state-of-the-art sports center or an acoustically perfect performance theater on campus. Just give me a school with challenging academics, a safe environment, and a price that is about half of what it is today.

Eileen Stetter

Norfolk

The October 5 magazine focused on or mentioned 15 private institutions of higher education in Massachusetts. Some received attention in several articles. A state college appeared only in a paid advertisement. Some articles lamented the high cost of attending private institutions; state colleges cost 60 percent less than most of the colleges named in the issue. Many more Massachusetts residents attend state colleges than private ones. The quality of education at our nine state colleges is impressive, as are the successes of the hundreds of thousands of our graduates who reside in Massachusetts, pay taxes, and contribute to our civic and cultural life.

Howard B. London

Acting Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Bridgewater State College

Bridgewater

You featured 12 colleges that all cost about $50,000 per year. I don't know what your reader demographic is, but according to an October 3 Chronicle of Higher Education article, 79 percent of all college students go to institutions where the average cost of tuition and fees falls below $9,000. If you add room and board to that, the total cost is still under $20,000 per year. By not highlighting this fact, you added unnecessarily to the unease and worry surrounding the college process. There are several public colleges in New England that are within the financial reach of families. We all serve a wide range of excellent students from all socioeconomic classes. We pay close attention to the development of each student, and the results are impressive.

Theodora J. Kalikow

President, University of Maine

at Farmington

Farmington, Maine

Inflation Nation

There is a simple and well-known solution to the grade inflation problem discussed in Phil Primack's essay ("Doesn't Anybody Get a C Anymore?" October 5). Along with each actual grade assigned by a professor in a particular course, the school attaches the average of all of the grades assigned by that professor in the course. A reader of a transcript would instantly know that A/A is essentially meaningless, while A/C means something. Best of all, of course, would be a grade of A/F. This approach instantly identifies professors who are too lazy to do their job and can't resist pandering, and so engage in grade inflation.

Paul J. NahinProfessor Emeritus of

Electrical Engineering

University of New Hampshire

Durham, New Hampshire

As a lifelong teacher, I am convinced students need to be judged against standards (not one another) and be provided rubrics to guide them in reaching these standards. By not having to compete, students can learn the valuable skill of working and learning together. Grading should be A, B, and "not yet," with the teacher's role to get them to the A or B level.

Frank Thoms

Lowell

I recently graduated from Saint Anselm College, a small Catholic college in Manchester, New Hampshire. For decades, students at my school have complained about the lack of grade inflation. Saint Anselm's takes a very strong stance on grade inflation, and the school even encourages its professors to keep the class average at 2.33 or so. A lack of grade inflation forces students to actually learn the material versus being able to just regurgitate it. While this is something that prepared us for the everyday challenges and the competitiveness of the working world, it also put us at a disadvantage in other aspects of life. With an average GPA of 2.5, students find it's much harder to get into graduate schools.

Chris O'Brien

Belmont

I recently graduated from college, and I can say that an A is what is expected from students, a B is a disappointment, and a C is considered unacceptable. The thought is that if you put in a minimal amount of work, you deserve an A. While I agree that something should be done, it seems that first grade inflation must be accepted as a nationwide problem. Every educational institution must agree that a C counts as average, a B is above average, and an A is exceptional and rare. Once this happens, educational institutions can change their grading systems, but not before. I can't say that I haven't benefited from the perks of grade inflation, but while it looks good on paper, it makes for worse students. Students are becoming lazier each year, and it's only because they realize they can do very little to get the grades they want.

Mike Nishimura

Brooklyn, New York

I taught engineering at two universities and eventually left both positions because of whiny students complaining about their grades. The bar is set low in high school, and students just assume the "country club" will continue through college. After all, they are entitled, right?

John F. Pescatore

Jefferson City, Tennessee

I appreciate your take on grade inflation in colleges and universities, and I'm afraid the trend doesn't stop there. At the corporate level, managers are mandated to evaluate their employees during a yearly performance appraisal discussion. At our organization, we have a five-point rating system. Managers (like professors) are afraid of conflict and confrontation, so instead of giving a true rating, they inflate it so that the employee will be happy. So managers, in essence, do not manage. It's a problem in the public and private sector.

Josh Perlman

Franklin

Too Close

As the head of an elementary school, I've watched the ever-growing anxiety of our 13-year-olds as they've applied to secondary schools and the anxieties of my own children as they've applied to college. Alison Lobron's article ("Hovering Closer," October 5) didn't help. Her contention that more children wished their parents had been more involved in the college selection process misses the point. It's more important for us to help our children become independent than it is for us to manage the process more effectively for them. There are many good college choices, and ultimately how a student does in college is more important than which college he or she chooses to attend.

John M. Waters

Andover

Women's Studies

Too bad one of the T-shirts on your college tuition page wasn't from a women's college! After printing Eliza Borne's eloquent case for an all-women's education in her essay (Perspective, October 5), inclusion would have made sense. Some parents might actually have encouraged the choice of a women's college, ending up with more confident and higher-achieving daughters, according to Borne. And in some cases, a lower tuition bill, as well!

Debra Orgera

Leeds

I went to an all women's college. Unfortunately, my alma mater has recently gone coed, but not because the school did not do everything Borne mentioned. It was an issue of enrollment; the college desperately needed to find a way to increase it in order to stay operational. Women's colleges are not an anachronism, and I hope they are able to remain alive and well for future generations of women. They make the glass ceiling more fragile.

Bonnie Navarra Petronis

Westborough