Education and Minorities

I just read the most heinous and misleading attack on the colleges and universities of this nation I have ever seen in Ruben Navarrette’s article (“Education’s Broken Promise to Minorities,” Opinion, Feb. 14). I can understand his frustration on the initial review of your analysis of the disparity in salaries between whites and nonwhites but his frustration is clouding his reasoning. Can he name a better country in offering opportunity to its citizens and immigrants through higher education?

He also does not seem to have a full realization about what the role of a university is in the development and education of an individual. In his view it is only a way for individuals to make money. Therefore, it is no different and has no more integrity than another Wall Street scheme.

All qualified individuals should seek higher education, not solely because it will provide greater earning power as a byproduct, but because of the opportunity to enrich the individual to do more for our society, which needs the best talent available. If he thinks his education betrayed him, then I would submit he was never truly educated in the first place.

As an example, my son-in-law has his Ph.D. and teaches at one of the major universities in this country. He is a success and role model to our family because of his scholarship and dedication to his profession, not because of the size of his paycheck.

GREGORY PEREZ

Los Angeles