Thanks for reporting the serious problems facing our state universities, their students and Florida's economy ('U.S. News' Latest Reports Shows State's Universities Are Slipping,' Our Opinion, Aug. 25). In a nutshell, our state universities are overcrowded (Florida has five of the nations 15 largest universities), increasingly under-funded, and as you have noted, slipping in the quality of the education provided to their students who are increasingly packed into excessively large classes with graduate assistants and part-time instructors replacing more qualified professors, a shortage of academic advisers and increased time required for graduation. All of this casts a long shadow on the quality of the education that we provide our students, the economic future of our state, and is deeply disappointing to all of us who have worked over the years to provide our state and its students with a superior state university system and a stronger state economy. ...more

September 12, 2007