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Golden age of higher ed

Proposals for free community (President Obama) and four-year college tuition (Sen. Bernie Sanders) are not new. Though I lived with friends my senior year at Shadle Park High School the fall of 1962 so that I could play basketball, I was immediately a resident of California because my parents had moved there in 1961.

I attended the College of San Mateo for three years, paying only a $5 per semester student activity fee. Unfortunately for others, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan eliminated the free tuition when he came in and ravaged the higher education system of California.

Over the next 12 years the Sputnik-inspired, bipartisan National Defense Education Act provided me with low-interest student loans to complete B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees while keeping my wife and two children clothed, housed, fed and happy.

For those without family wealth, that was the golden age of higher education in America.

Steve Heaps

Spokane Valley

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