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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 28, 2007

Why Take Four Years?

Regarding "USF Pays Lip Service To Awarding Four-Year Degrees In Four Years" (Our Opinion, Nov. 21):

There's a very simple and cost-effective solution to getting a bachelor's ("four-year") degree in a timely manner: get rid of the "four-year degree."

Think of it. Why does someone want a bachelor's degree? Because studies show that people with them make more money. Why should pursuing an accounting or engineering degree, for example, include spending tens of thousands of dollars and two years or so taking courses in history, literature, religion, science and so on in order to prepare for a career in accounting or engineering? It shouldn't.

So, the solution is to eliminate the freshman and sophomore years and structure the degree requirements around the major of interest to the degree-seeking customer. Scrap the freshman and sophomore years and customers - academia calls them students - can be called juniors and seniors. Or, if they play football, we can call them juniors and redshirt juniors.

FRED BROWN

Brandon

Access Is More Important

I appreciate The Tampa Tribune's editorial board asking how long it should take to get a four-year college degree. Most high school students assume that it takes four years to earn a four-year degree at a state university in Florida.

They are, for the most part, unaware that state universities do not embrace a four-year graduation rate as the standard. These institutions, nevertheless, still provide a valuable service.
State universities offer admissions to high school graduates, including some whom have demonstrated limited ability to do college-level work. Access to a state university is the only option available to some to further their education. We should applaud this compassionate (though inefficient) use of taxpayers' dollars.

JASON D. MIMS

Tampa

Writers, Times Change

Regarding "Doesn't Miss Writers" (Letters, Nov. 23):

As a student in the school of Mass Communications at USF, I have been continually bashed over the head with information about how vital writers are to everything - that is, everything television, everything movies, everything you can imagine! Without the writer, there is no plot, no words for the actor to mutter, no scene for the director to call or to cut.

To say that they are not missed, one is saying that television, movies, newspaper and books could very well be lived without.

Yes, some of todays sitcoms are a bit raunchy, but is that not what society demands? The writers of sitcoms are surely not the reason that society has moved from "I Love Lucy" to "I Love New York."

Writers simply provide what their audiences crave.

SARAH E. TORRENS

Tampa

Perjury Is Big Deal

Unlike the two letter writers on Nov. 22, I do think that Barry Bonds' perjury is a big deal.

First we were conned into accepting that Bill Clinton's perjury before a grand jury was no big deal because "it was just about sex." Now we are told that Bonds' perjury - also before a federal grand jury - is no big deal because "it's just about baseball."

How many more exceptions are we going to carve out of the simple rule that you tell the truth under oath? It won't be long before no one will feel any obligation to tell the truth in court and the whole system collapses under its own weight.

STEVE HULL

Largo

It's About Lawbreaking

Regarding "A Callous Response" by Guadalupe Lamas (Letters, Nov. 24):

Illegal aliens are not prosecuted because of their origin. They are prosecuted for the same reason legal-citizen lawbreakers are - because they are criminals.

Their lack of regard for our laws starts when they sneak across our border. Once in our country, they commit federal felonies by using forged or stolen documents to steal jobs Americans will do for a living wage.

More felonies are committed when they accept cash payments and fail to pay federal taxes. Additional felonies occur when they use their forged or stolen documents to steal social services.

Most illegal aliens have learned how to game the system and are milking it for all it's worth. But, in Lamas' world these people are not criminals because they originated somewhere else. To follow Lamas' illogical reasoning to its logical conclusion, the rule of law would only apply to those who are here legally. All others should be free to roam the nation and do whatever they want, whenever they want.

That, in my dictionary, is called anarchy.

JOHANNAH BRUGGEMAN

Palm Harbor

It Will Take Amendment

Regarding "Change Law Immediately" (Letters, Nov. 24):

I'm afraid the change would have to be more than a mere change of the law. I would refer the writer to the 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."

I grant that the Supreme Court has never directly decided whether the citizenship clause covers offspring of illegal aliens and other non-permanent residents. Nor has the Court decided if Congress has the power to exclude such children.

But the practice has been that those children are considered U.S. citizens. To change that, we will need a constitutional amendment.

How long will that take? Ask the supporters of the ERA how long it takes to get an amendment adopted.

JOHN McARTHUR

Lakeland

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