Letters to the editor
Dear Editor,
Several of you have asked if Texas A&M University has plans for a tuition-free program for students from low-income families similar to what the University of Texas recently announced.
In fact, Texas A&M University implemented virtually the exact same program 10 years ago. The Texas A&M program is called Aggie Assurance. And since 2008, the program has allowed 33,447 undergraduate students from families earning less than $60,000 a year to attend college tuition free.
In addition, Texas A&M University System regents set aside $30 million additional dollars in 2018 to provide help for students of families who earn $100,000 or less, or who are stricken with financial hardships such as losses during natural disasters, death of a breadwinner or some other calamity. This program, dubbed Regents’ Grants, was created after Hurricane Harvey and has helped hundreds of students who lost books, clothes and transportation, among other things. The Regents Grants Program is available not only to students at Texas A&M University, but also to students at each of the universities in our System, about 150,000 in all.
We congratulate the University of Texas on adopting a program similar to Aggie Assurance. I know their students will benefit from it just as ours have for the last decade.
Sincerely,
John Sharp
Chancellor, The Texas A&M University System
Dear Editor,
I read with the interest the letter to the editor in your June 26, 2019, edition by Patricia Adam. I am a retired history teacher and I think it’s necessary to set the record straight on her comments about the failures of the democratic party.
To be fair, Ms. Adam’s facts about the democrat’s resistance to the civil rights act of 1964 are correct as far as she goes. However, it was the southern democrats and southern republicans who vehemently opposed the bill, but It was a bipartisan majority of both parties that passed the bill and president Johnson, who signed the law, was a democrat. It was the late President Kennedy, also a democrat, who originated the bill in the first place. This legislation proved that people with more liberal views on both side of the political spectrum could work together to right historical wrongs.
After the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, the southern democrats, still very much against desegregation, gradually began voting republican because that party’s conservative political views were more acceptable to them. The democratic party today is nothing like its post-Civil War persona and I would say that the divisiveness confronting us now is certainly not limited to Democrats alone.
All the information above is well documented and easily accessible online.
Additionally, I wonder how the members of the black community of Navasota, who were celebrating the historic dedication of the George Washington Carver historical marker, described in this same June 26 edition felt when they read the final paragraph in Ms. Adam’s letter. In my opinion, she demeans African-Americans by insinuating that they only support the democratic party because they are “slaves” to government handouts. Ironically, a quick check of government sites reveals that whites outnumber blacks on welfare rolls in most of the States. That too is very well documented.
In closing I would like to point out that the words in the Declaration of Independence don’t say just a few, only the rich, or only a particular race but all men are created equal and all of us Americans regardless of our political persuasion should remember that.
Sincerely,
Elaine Sullins
Iola, Texas