When the administrators of the SAT announced that their new test would include a 25-minute essay portion, writing teachers around the country were optimistic. We hoped it would be a genuine test of writing ability, and that over time it would increase the emphasis on good writing in high schools and lead to better-prepared, more-literate students being sent off to college.

New information from the US Census Bureau reinforces the value of a college education: workers 18 and over with a bachelor’s degree earn an average of $51,206 a year, while those with a high school diploma earn $27,915. Workers with an advanced degree make an average of $74,602, and those without a high school diploma average $18,734.

A white woman with a bachelor's degree typically earned $37,800 in 2003, compared with $43,700 for a college-educated Asian woman and $41,100 for a black woman. Hispanic women took home $37,600 a year.

Intentionally misleading comparisons are becoming the dominant mode of public discourse.

The MIT hacking culture has given us such treasures as police cars and cows on the Great Dome, a disappearing door to the President's office, and the commencement game of "Al Gore Buzzword Bingo." Hacks can be technical, physical, virtual, or verbal. Often the underlying motivation is to conquer the inaccessible and make possible the improbable. Hacks can express dissatisfaction with local culture or with administrative decisions, but mostly they are remarkably good-spirited. They are also by definition ephemeral. Fortunately, the MIT Museum has amassed a unique collection of hack-related pictures, reports, and remnants.

The motto on the MIT seal, "Mens et Manus" -- "mind and hand" -- signals the Institute's dedication to what MIT founder William Barton Rogers called "the most earnest cooperation of intelligent culture with industrial pursuits."

To the Editor:

You write of depressed and suicidal college students as if their problems were purely psychological.