Dear Editor,
Last week's Daily article "Cost of Attending Tufts increases by 5.33 percent" was lucid and informative in describing what has been made transparent about the increase in costs for undergraduate education at Tufts.
It was, however, disappointing to see the lack of apology or understanding in the statements made by Dean Glaser. Tufts University has, as he said, "faced up" to the rising costs. Yet to say that "we're not ashamed" sums up a very different sentiment.
However principled and important the reasons are for the increase, the fact remains that Tufts has made itself increasingly inaccessible to the middle class.
If diversity is as important as Tufts says it is and as important as I believe it is, then economic diversity should not be overlooked.
Creating a campus split between deserving students who need near-total or total financial aid and students from backgrounds of the other extreme does nothing to promote a "need-blind" environment.
As presidential hopeful Barack Obama said in his Democratic Convention nomination acceptance speech in Denver, "Individual and mutual responsibility, that's the essence of America's promise."
And so it is crucial that those who can afford to pay for Tufts bear this mutual responsibility, and by consequence, pay more. But who can afford to pay for Tufts now?
Gregory Kastelman, Class of '09
