After reading Kathleen Hetherington's letter ("Pension shift would hurt community colleges," March 6), I can offer a few suggestions.
What about getting involved with the exorbitant cost of textbooks as a result of collusion between the schools and the publishing industry. Schools might ensure that the same text isn't just rearranged and considered a new book, and whether required books are even going to be used in the actual classes. If the publisher won't lower the prices, maybe college could put it out for bid outside of the "good 'ol boy network." This is one way to put more money into the hands of the "students that can least afford it."
Also, as far as I know attendance at community colleges is way up, which means schools are bringing in more money than ever. This tells me that the people in charge of managing that revenue aren't doing a very good job and maybe should be replaced. I wonder if some high-salaried positions might be eliminated from those 61 percent of Howard Community College employees who are enrolled in the state pension system.
Those are just a few suggestions off the top of my head, but I'm willing to bet if you sat down and thought about it you could come up with a couple more.
Steve Cuprzynski