I don’t regret marrying at the tender age of 16.  I don’t regret that not long after turning 18, I gave birth to a beautiful daughter.  I don’t regret the strange combination of jobs I’ve held:  motel manager, office manager of a retirement community, coffee shop owner.  As far as life choices go, I have but one lament. 

I don’t have a college degree.

In fact, I haven’t a high school degree.

I was a straight-A student who dropped out halfway through my junior year. 

Due to a brief illness, I’d missed a few school days.  My new husband had to sign an excuse form and I remember thinking, “How idiotic is that!  I’m a grown married woman and I still need an “adult” to sign a permission slip?!”  With this lack of forethought, I quit school.  It would be a year of procrastinating before I attained a GED.

After moving to Iowa, I’d taken several courses at our community college, intent on finally nabbing that prized diploma.  But soon, small-business-ownership -with its insanely long hours and crazy schedule- interfered with my long-term goals and then…well, and THEN a certain someone came along and campaigning and legislating took precedence.

But after the election, I reconsidered.  After all, my mom had earned her Masters of Divinity at the spry age of 69.  Surely, at 47, I could take the few remaining courses needed to complete my Associate’s Degree.  Politics, however, had gotten in the way.  When I made inquiries with the college, I discovered that those 12 credits I’d initially lacked had morphed into almost 30.  I may not have a college degree, but I can still cipher.  30 credits x $$$ per credit = a lot of moolah. 

After mulling it over, and analyzing the cost benefits, I determined that a degree wasn’t really my goal anyway.  Knowledge is what I hungered for.

 MOOCS has filled that cavity for me.  Massive Open Online Course – free internet classes with unlimited participation.  Through MOOCS, I’ve delved into the complexities of moral and political philosophy taught by a Harvard professor (Wading through Kant’s reasonings was tougher than steering a canoe through Arkansas’s Big Piney Creek. I may need to take that course again).  Although I’d forgotten what an adverbial clause was, from a UC Berkeley professor I learned that I use them an awful lot. Dr. Mark Jarzombek, Professor of Global History of Architecture at MIT, has taken me on the most amazing adventure, exploring ancient buildings and learning more about the cultures and purposes surrounding those structures.  (I long to see Istanbul’s Blue Mosque in person!)  Beginning in January, I’ll be tackling American Poetry, Roman Architecture, Jazz Appreciation and Early Christianity.   

When I’ve completed these courses, I won’t have earned a degree, but I’ll certainly have gained Knowledge.  (Something in common with my favorite president, Abe Lincoln!)  But, if I need to look for a full-time job in the future, I’m quite cognizant that my chances are diminished because of this deficit in my resume.   

At a recent educational meeting that Art and I attended, I heard that Iowa’s community college tuition rates are one of the highest in the nation.  And an email from the Board of Regents of our three Iowa universities has requested another tuition freeze this year from the legislature.

Higher education in America costs money. I can’t believe I’m the sole potentially “non-traditional” student who would benefit from a more financially accessible system.

 “A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones.” Abraham Lincoln