Norwood asking for a recount in mayor's race

Marty Nemko cites a dozen or so folks without college degrees who have gone on to accomplish great things.

He tells us nine U.S. presidents lacked a college degree (though he failed to note the last one was elected more than 65 years ago). Apparently, if these men and women were able to achieve without the benefit of a college education, he would encourage thousands of others to take the same route.

(ENLARGE)

Lawrence M. Schall is president of Oglethorpe University.

As a college president, I agree with Nemko that plenty of students head off to college not fully prepared. I would challenge his assumption, however, that all of those who are struggling did not perform well in high school. I have seen many high-achieving students arrive and fail to take full advantage of what we offer, yet I have also witnessed countless lower-achieving students come to college and blossom.

College is still America's great equalizer, the opportunity for those born into less privilege to achieve the American dream through a good education. What we should be focused on is how to provide this opportunity to more people, not discourage anyone from reaching higher.

Half the students entering ninth grade in America do not even graduate from high school. We are losing a generation of young men and women, and it is highly unlikely that any of them will end up running for president.

Nemko's claims about the ills of higher education are flawed because of the broad brush with which he paints. "Students are a cost item, while research is a profit center," he writes. But at Oglethorpe University and the vast majority of small colleges like us, there are no research dollars flowing in. None. Students are what we are all about, inside and outside the classroom.

He similarly describes a sea of large lecture seminars, often staffed by graduate students. A large class at Oglethorpe University is 18, and no graduate students teach here. Our faculty is comprised of the best and the brightest educators who have spent countless years devoted to their field of study and are committed to teaching first and foremost. And there are countless colleges like Oglethorpe providing students with a rigorous and personal educational experience.

As for Nemko's idea that a program like No Child Left Behind is the answer for higher education, I'd encourage him to talk to a schoolteacher or two about what the narrowness of that vision of education has done to learning. The American system of higher education, with all its diversity and choice, is the best in the world.

Instead of promoting less education, let's commit to graduating more young people from high school and encouraging them to take advantage of the vast array of choices for the future: from big to small colleges, technical schools to arts colleges. Let's commit to removing the financial barriers to a college degree that so many students of less privilege face.

I read recently that one state, over a few decades, had reduced funding for public higher education more than 300 percent while increasing funding for prisons by that same amount. To my mind, that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. America and its future depend on making better choices.