Re: "This town gouges fans on football weekends" (Oct. 18 letter):

Local establishments hike prices during periods of increased demand, including football weekends, Ag Progress Days and graduation as well as events not run by the university such as the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts and the Grange Fair. Likewise, Disney charges more for food, drinks, and a resort during summers and holidays; the price of a Philadelphia hotel triples over the Fourth of July weekend; and San Diego hotel prices and minimum stays will skyrocket the week of this year's Super Bowl.

Penn State also prospers from this exchange. The 70,000-plus nonstudents who fill Beaver Stadium each football Saturday eating $3 hot dogs, drinking $2.50 bottles of water and paying $10 to park all help to fund non-revenue-producing sports programs in the Penn State system -- programs in desperate need of the huge generation of alumni and local cash.

I'm not sure of the writer's point, unless it's the tired, self-involved argument that local residents somehow owe the student population. Penn State, State College and the surrounding area, along with students, returning alumni, tourists and locals, provide a synergistic relationship called "an economy." So I think the term "leech" shows naivete and an elevated sense of self-importance. State College would survive, and thrive, without the university. The university, without football money, would find a way to fund its sports programs. Economies work with what they have.

But for those tired of being leeched, I know an inexpensive college with cheap food and steady hotel rates -- the University of Baghdad. Of course, we do things a little differently in a free-market economy.