Investing in students is the way to help our economy

Kudos to Rep. Larry Seaquist for calling it like it is. In his guest opinion piece, he warns that although Washingtonians appear to be fairly educated, if you look below the surface you will see the true story, our educational status is an illusion because we import many educated people to fill coveted positions [“Education innovation: Washington’s ladder to long-term success,” Opinion, Feb. 10].

Seaquist says it well, that “investing in our colleges, universities, and most important, our students is our ticket out of this economic slump and the best medicine for our ailing economy.”

Washington is fortunate to have an excellent system of public and private, two-year and four-year colleges, creating a broad range of choices for our students. Choice creates a greater chance of completion and successful entry into the workforce.

The state’s laudable investment in student financial aid must be maintained despite these difficult times. Many low-income students simply will not be able enroll or to finish college due to financial pressures without this critical financial aid. The Legislature should strengthen its commitment to students in the form of student financial aid.

Investing in students is, indeed, the “best medicine for an ailing economy.”

— Deborah B. Cushing, Seattle

Education is not the simple answer to everything

Rep. Larry Seaquest says our big economic problem is that “we need a lot more educated people and we need them fast.” Meaning, given sufficient learning, good jobs and prosperity are just around the corner.

Say “all those people stuck in dead-end jobs” happen to climb “the ladder to our future,” enter community college, then a university, and then top everything off with a post-grad degree in a technical field — what happens next?

Exactly what will Google (or any of those other “talent-hungry employers”) do with the tsunami of unarguably qualified applicants? Further, who’s going to be selling groceries, making milkshakes, and picking up garbage?

Sorry to be a spoilsport, but education is not the simple answer to everything. Inconveniently enough, it’s not a silver bullet, dealing death to such looming, underlying issues as too many people and not enough rewarding work, regardless of educational levels.

— Bruce Bonifaci, Bainbridge Island

The bill would create pay disparity

Rep. Larry Seaquist, chair of the House Higher Education Committee, makes a civic appeal for funding of our state’s higher-education system, arguing that “investing in our colleges, universities, and, most important, our students, is our ticket out of this economic slump and the best medicine for an ailing economy.” He cites the “big swaths of our lower-income citizens are left behind, undereducated, and underemployed — economic anchors, not engines” as a compelling reason.

But when separating rhetoric from solutions, the devil is in the details.

Consider House Bill 1631, for example, which might seem to be such an investment by promising automatic raises for college faculty.

However, because instructors are composed some 3,600 reasonably compensated tenured faculty and 8,000 part-time/adjunct faculty with poverty-level income, and because House Bill 1631 pay increase is based on a fixed percentage (0.8 percent) for each group, two-thirds of the appropriations would go to the tenured faculty minority while the remaining one-third of the funding would go to the impoverished part-time faculty majority, thus increasing the pay disparity between the two.

It would seem ironic to claim our colleges may “shine” by offering to transform the lives of our those “stuck in dead-end jobs” when the primary instructors are themselves “stuck in dead-end jobs” with little promise of reform.

— Keith Hoeller, Seattle

— Jack Longmate, Poulsbo

(Washington Part-Time Faculty Association)