I am afraid Bob Englehart’s cartoon in the opinion page of the Gazette’s April 9 edition is misleading, at best, about the cost and value of education. While private college or an out of state university’s cost may be borne more directly by the student and their family, and is easy to poke fun at, the “free” schools listed in the cartoon still have real costs.

Community colleges, as an example, may charge a small amount of tuition for their essentially valuable services, which can’t cover the whole cost, but still deserve our support. To state that a good education — teaching carpentry, plumbing, or something “more” like being a schoolteacher or nurse — is free, devalues it. Oh and that costly education is requisite to an apprenticeship in any of those trades. We should not be encouraged, as a community, to ignore our responsibility to support educating our next generation.

Aaron Hayden

Amherst