To the Editor:
In response to “Trump-ing Yale? Not quite” (9/15):
I was not trashing Yale. I loved Yale — I think it’s a great place and provides a great education for the intellectual elite of our land. The problem is that there are 3,000 colleges in the United States, all of whom wish they were Yale and copy the Yale curriculum as best they can. These schools are doing a disservice to the population they serve. I worry about the irrelevant education the average person gets, starting with the nonsense taught in high school and culminating with courses that have no relevance to daily life in college. Petronious complained about the irrelevance of school to daily life 2,000 years ago. John Adams said that school should teach one how to live and how to make a living. Trump University offers no competition to Yale. But it may, in the long run — not yet of course — offer practical education to a world that needs it.
Roger Schank
Sept. 15, 2005
The writer is chief learning officer at Trump University and a former professor of computer science and psychology at Yale.