How about a sliding scale admission? Or make the 'donation' optional?

On Tue, 28 May 1996, Adrienne DeArmas wrote:

> I have to admit that living in Washington, DC, I am awfully spoiled by free
> access to museums. I recently road tripped to New York to museum hop for the
> day and was blown away by the cost of
> what-we-do-in-Washington-when-we-are-broke-but-want-to-do-something! Had it
> not been for flashing my AAM m'ship card, I would have had to turn away from
> many of the sites I visited.
>
> I have mixed feelings about charging admission b/c it creates a barrier to
> those who cannot afford the admission price. When I think about museums being
> an alternative to the declining classroom experience, I am operating under
> the bias of free access to museums. Few disadvantaged youths will pay to go
> to a museum, and even if they were let in for free under some "reach out
> program," pride would be a factor in prohibiting them from taking advantage
> of such a program.
>
> Back to the question in all our minds - how are we going to keep our museums
> open? I don't have an answer, but I am not sure that charging admission is
> the answer across the board. Just a thought or two.
>
> - Adrienne
>