To the editor:

I believe Richard Hardin’s “Tuition victims” (Public Forum, May 22) deserves more than pointing out the effects of “scandalous” tuition rates at our universities. We need to consider some of the causes for same.

In 1947, I enrolled at Kansas University at a tuition cost of about $300 a year. I submitted my Lawrence High transcript with its minimum graduation requirements of half D’s and half C’s with a fresh mind, barely used. It was the best I could do, having, since the age of 11, gotten up at 5 a.m. to deliver newspapers and otherwise work 40 hours a week. School was for rest. My fate was similar to the fate of most farm boys, who had assigned chores at an early age.

At that time, the Legislature was principally composed of sons of agriculture and teachers. They understood well the ancient laws of primogenitor, wherein the eldest son inherits the farmstead, and the rest know well that their home won’t be there when they grow up. Accordingly, they needed the best education possible, and the state should help.

The best memorial to the bygone era is the KU Jimmy Green statue, where the farm boy is greeted to the law school. Times they are a’changing.