A recent article in this newspaper (Aug. 13), noted rising attendance at community colleges and compared the tuition cost of $3,210 a year, at the community colleges to $7,185 a year at the University of Maine system.

This tuition cost disparity is like the unmistakable smell of smoke in a crowded room, or the thump, thump, thump of a flattened automobile tire. They all demand investigation.

This cost disparity has been publicly cited several times; apparently, it is nearly common knowledge and worse it is becoming as accepted as the vagaries of weather with one noticeable exception. No one is complaining about it.

However, beginning college students have shrewdly discovered that they can attend community college for their first two years at less than half the cost of the university. These students should be applauded for their common sense, but not the university.

Public taxes subsidize the university along with its inefficiencies. In the interest of fairness and especially because the university pleads continuously for taxpayer’s dollars, it should explain.

Unfortunately, it has not done so and is unlikely to respond to a single taxpayer. Will either the university or the politicians that annually bless the university with tax dollars respond to the Sun Journal?

Richard Sabine, Lewiston