The St. Louis Post Dispatch reports College's use of meat for tuition draws fire:
Instead of writing a check for tuition, parents of some Lindenwood University students hand over bacon and sausage and ham.This used to be a more common practice some years ago when more people lived on farms. It works because of the large differential between retail and farm prices for most agricultural products. As for PETA, why don't they stick Colonel Corn where the sun doesn't shine?
For several years, the school in St. Charles has accepted pigs in lieu of cash, then served the meat in the school cafeteria. Lindenwood President Dennis Spellmann started the practice to help family farmers send their children to college.
On Wednesday, an animal rights group asked Spellmann to halt the policy.
Bruce G. Friedrich, director of vegan outreach for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, sent a letter to Spellmann suggesting that Jesus had been an ethical vegetarian and that the university's Christian roots should cause it to reconsider the program.
Spellmann said he has no intention of doing so.
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One of the students who benefited from such barter was Sally Miller, 24, who graduated in 2000. Miller grew up on a farm near Silex, where her father, Kurt Bruns, 61, still raises cattle, corn, wheat, soybeans and hay with her two older brothers.
Miller said her father heard about Lindenwood's tuition program when she was a junior and hog prices were low. The family took some hogs to a processor in Silex and gave the meat to Lindenwood, where it wound up on students' plates. Miller said the program saved her a bundle on student loans.
