Marianne Williamson Would Be The First College Dropout President

Everyone is talking approximately, or at the least Googling, Marianne Williamson, her new age policies, her how-to e-book empire, and her secretive family lifestyles. If she has grown to be president, there would be various ancient firsts—the first female president, the number one Jewish president, the first unmarried president for 100 years—however, this kind of firsts stands proud as being a capability disadvantage. Namely, Marianne Williamson did now not graduate from university. In this, she stands wildly aside from each in advanced US president, who all finished at least a college diploma or served within the navy —Williams dropped out of a selective liberal arts university after the simplest two years to pursue her hobbies as a singer.

Without an undergraduate degree in the closing 100 years, the excellent President changed into Harry S. Truman, who have to end up President in 1945 after the death of FDR. He by no means went to university—as an alternative, he enlisted within the army and fought in World War I. Nine different presidents served within the military rather than attending university—normally in the Revolutionary War and Civil War eras. Every one-of-a-kind president finished at least a four-12 months college degree (Martin Van Buren and Grover Cleveland did now not attend college but “take a look at the regulation” to turn out to be attorneys, which I counted as equal to college and regulation college). So Williamson will be the first President to have neither a college-diploma education nor an army historical past.

That being stated, do you need to have graduated from a four-year college to be president? Of path now not—the handiest requirement is being a herbal-born US citizen above 35 years vintage. And I can widely know that, due to the founding father of college admissions consulting business enterprise, I’m heavily biased toward touting the advantages of a four-12 months university education. So I’m selecting no longer to talk in this newsletter about the advantages it can have. After all, it’s sincerely viable to make it through four years of an

Ivy League university schooling without being organized to be president. Still, I’d be remiss to now not factor out that Pomona College is one of the wonderful schools within u. S. (in 2015, it become ranked the great, above every Ivy), and that better faculties are truly less complex to graduate from, now not greater hard (after you get in). Pomona offers entire want-primarily based definitely useful resource, and ninety 3% of college students graduate within six years (masses higher than the common college, which has a fifty nine% six-year graduation charge).

But this isn’t about the value of college training. Regardless of whether or not she ought to have been higher-informed or higher-organized after four years at Pomona, her choice to drop out is troubling. Williamson’s situation is markedly one in every of a kind from our former presidents or the general public of Americans with partial college educations. She didn’t drop out of college to sign up within the navy, or due to the reality she might also need to now

Not manipulate to pay for it—she dropped out because of the truth she “had hassle locating her ardor” and wanted to pursue a career as a cabaret singer. Although Williamson is older now, we do endure in thoughts what candidates and presidents were like as children while evaluating their person, and what I’m searching out in our next president is a person with the grit, stamina, and stick-to-it-iveness to commit to doing their notable for the entire four years, no longer leaving midway thru to strive out some element greater thrilling.

Access Granted: California Community College’s Expand To Affordable Online Model

Community schools traditionally have served students making ready for a switch to a four-yr college and person rookies who’re able to make the dedication to going back to high school complete- or element-time. But what approximately the one’s capability students who can’t take the time to attend college; people who are unemployed and attempting to find work, or who already are operating a couple of processes to make ends meet?

To address the needs of the one, California has created the primary completely-on-line community college within the nation’s existing network university device. The California Online Community College District (COCCD) was proposed by using former Governor Jerry Brown. It targets what is taken into consideration “stranded people”: the 2. Five million Californians are elderly 25 to 34 who finished high college but didn’t have any diploma. Another 6.2 million Californians elderly 35 to 65 fall into that same category. Forty-nine percent of the country’s stranded workers are from Spanish-speaking families.