To the editor:

George Will’s column of May 17 argues that college student indebtedness is mostly the fault of the students, and Americans, especially those who never attended college, should not have to share in the easing of this burden, even by supporting the current low interest rate of 3.4 percent.

Will ignores the vast changes that history has imposed on our society since his generation’s time. In 1968, at the University of Illinois, where Will’s father taught, annual resident tuition was $300; adjusted for inflation, today that amounts to about $2,000. At the University of Texas, which I attended in the ’60s, it was $100. Illinois tuition now runs $14,000 to $19,000; Texas $9,000 to $10,000.

So members of Will’s generation, including tight-fisted legislators everywhere, if they attended one of our then-great state universities, include a large number of powerful hypocrites who refuse to extend to young people today the opportunities that existed for them. State college tuition rates ARE scandalous, but the last people to blame for this situation should be its victims.