Education Degree Quotes & Sayings

The willingness to relegate a person in my father's situation to a lower and less vigilant degree of medical attention was an accurate reflection of the values of a social system which, as I had learned in my own work in education, measures human life, more frequently than not, in rather hard-nosed and explicit terms of future payoff to the national well-being. — Jonathan Kozol

Extreme excellence in music is liable to yet stronger objections; to attain it, almost every other accomplishment must be neglected; and, when attained, it leads to an improper degree of intimacy with professional people. Music softens the mind - and if a master and his pupil are continually together, bad consequence may ensure: nevertheless, I would have you know and love music; but I would not have you doat upon it. — Eliza Parsons

The childhood poverty of both my parents and their minimal education did much to influence me and my two younger brothers in our education and career choices. One brother became a dentist and the other, a professor of anthropology with a Ph.D. degree. — Ferid Murad

What I know is that if I was asked to teach mathematics in French for a week to young kids, I would do my homework and I think I could do a decent job. I don't think a degree in education would make me a better teacher. I sometimes teach in college. I don't teach for long periods of time, but I give workshops and I think I can communicate stuff. So, it's about communicating. — Philippe Falardeau

As I stepped to the stage to pick up my degree, and the locusts sang off in the distance. — Bob Dylan

Education is what they equip you with; just in case your dream doesn't workout. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Adult males in modern society who feel fulfilled in giving concern and tuition to boys and youths are portrayed as being interested only in boys' bodies (though this may be a small part of the attraction) and are spurned and traduced as sexual monsters. I believe we reap the harvest of ours hysterical and homophobia today in juvenile crime, drug use and delinquency. Consider the ethical training which boys and youths gained through shudo in Japan or in the system in Classical Greece, the tuition in manners, customs and humanity, the degree of civilised values imparted to them, the ideas of loyalty, honour and truthfulness; this highly personalised education with love and sensuality at its centre must be far more effective than any other. We in the West are bigoted fools to dismiss it with such horror. — Colin Spencer

A college education I would never propose - a bachelor's degree won't even keep you in clothes — Cole Porter

I have an education degree from the University of Minnesota, and I was a teacher for about a minute. — Loni Anderson

When my mother had four girls, and she could tell her marriage was falling apart, she went back to college and got her degree in music and education. — Andie MacDowell

I knew that, in a large degree, we were trying an experiment
that of testing whether or not it was possible for Negroes to build up and control the affairs of a large education institution. I knew that if we failed it wold injure the whole race. — Booker T. Washington

I may not have a degree, but I certainly got an education. — Jodi Picoult

I think everyone should go to college and get a degree and then spend six months as a bartender and six months as a cabdriver. Then they would really be educated. — Al McGuire

Crimes increase as education, opportunity, and property decrease. Whatever spreads ignorance, poverty and, discontent causes crime ... Criminals have their own responsibility, their own share of guilt, but they are merely the hand ... Whoever interferes with equal rights and equal opportunities is in somereal degree, responsible for the crimes committed in the community. — Rutherford B. Hayes

If America's universities are indeed poor value for money, why might that be? The main reason is that the market for higher education, like that for health care, does not work well. The government rewards universities for research, so that is what professors concentrate on. Students are looking for a degree from an institution that will impress employers; employers are interested primarily in the selectivity of the institution a candidate has attended. Since the value of a degree from a selective institution depends on its scarcity, good universities have little incentive to produce more graduates. — Anonymous

I am a firm believer in education and have worked very hard to tell young Latinos that they must go to college and that, if possible, they should pursue an advanced degree. I am convinced that education is the great equalizer. — Jimmy Smits

I certainly wasn't seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me, asking questions. One was, "What's your alma mater?" I told him, "Books. — Alex Haley

Let me tell you something, I have never stated this, but you idiots refer to me as some moroon, I have a aster and a lwa degree. I simply cannot take the bar because of my stupid past in my 20's. You people do not want to go up against m on education because most of you will lose badly. — Larry Sinclair

Somewhere in Rwanda, a rural farmer is dreaming of providing an education for her children. Not just high school, but maybe even a university degree. Such a dream used to seem out of reach. — Sylvia Mathews Burwell

It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds. A Harvard education and a Yale degree. — John F. Kennedy

In China, women who are single past the age of twenty-seven are stigmatized as sheng nu, or "leftover women." They face severe pressure from their families to marry, stemming from the widespread belief that regardless of education and professional achievement, a woman is "absolutely nothing until she is married." One thirty-six-year-old economics professor was rejected by fifteen men because she had an advanced degree; her father then forbade her younger sister from going to graduate school. — Sheryl Sandberg

I tell you, stupidity, self-protective stupidity, is the fundamental sin. No man alive has a right to contentment. No man alive has a right to mental rest. No man has any right to be as stupid as educated, Liberal men have been about that foolish affair at Geneva. Men who have any leisure, any gifts, any resources, have no right to stifle their consciences with that degree of imposture. — H.G.Wells

Now of the difficulties bound up with the public in which we doctors work, I hesitate to speak in a mixed audience. Common sense in matters medical is rare, and is usually in inverse ratio to the degree of education. — William Osler

A vagina is an uneducated woman's diploma. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

'Friends' was an education in intelligent comedic banter; in intelligent vernacular. It was an education in scene study. It was an education in group dynamic. I came out of there with a master's degree in comedy. — Matt LeBlanc

It was a time when a degree was expected but not much respected. — Pawan Mishra

We have to make sure that college is accessible and affordable. Two years ago, I stood here and called upon our institutions of higher learning to develop plans for degrees that cost no more than $10,000. There were plenty of detractors at that time who insisted it couldn't be done. However, that call inspired educators at colleges and universities across our state to step up to the plate. Today, I'm proud to tell you that thirteen Texas universities have announced plans for a $10,000 degree. — Rick Perry

My husband had an education. He had a degree in Literature. I married into a camp of literary types. — Joni Mitchell

I am not a chef. I can't claim that title. The difference is a cook doesn't have a degree. A chef has formal education. It has nothing to do with talent or actual preparation - one just can't claim the title if you don't have degree. — Anna Pump

I love the book signings, you know, because I get to talk to real people, and a staggering number of people have said something very specific to me. "The Family Leave Law saved my family," or "Made our lives better," or, "The education aid that you provided made it possible for me to go to college." One man at 50 years of age got his college degree. — William J. Clinton

It be urged that the wild and uncultivated tree, hitherto yielding sour and bitter fruit only, can never be made to yield better; yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree on the savage stock, producing what is most estimable in kind and degree. Education, in like manner, engrafts a new man on the native stock, and improves what in his nature was vicious and perverse into qualities of virtue and social worth. — Thomas Jefferson

INSUFFICIENT EDUCATION. This is a handicap that may be overcome with comparative ease. Experience has proven that the best-educated people are often those who are known as 'self-made' or self-educated. It takes more than a university degree to make one a person of education. Any person who is educated has learned to get whatever they want in life without violating the rights of others. Education consists not so much of knowledge, but of knowledge effectively and persistently applied. People are paid not merely for what they know, but more particularly for what they do with what they know. — Napoleon Hill

I ... [proposed] three distinct grades of education, reaching all classes. 1. Elementary schools for all children generally, rich and poor. 2. Colleges for a middle degree of instruction, calculated for the common purposes of life and such as should be desirable for all who were in easy circumstances. And 3d. an ultimate grade for teaching the sciences generally and in their highest degree ... The expenses of [the elementary] schools should be borne by the inhabitants of the county, every one in proportion to his general tax-rate. This would throw on wealth the education of the poor. — Thomas Jefferson

Nowhere was the complacency of the establishment, with its blind faith in progress, more evident than in its attitude toward an elite degree: as long as my child goes to the right schools, upward mobility will continue. A university education had become the equivalent of a very expensive insurance policy, like owning a gun. — George Packer

Nothing in a graduate degree in art history prepares you for the eloquence of the eraser. — Adam Gopnik

Parents in the early half of the twentieth century were primarily concerned with the development of character in their children. They wanted to be certain that their children were ready to cope with adversity, for it was surely coming to them one day whether in personal or national life. The development of character involves self-discipline and often sacrifice of one's own desires for the good of self and others. Montessori education, developed in this historical period, reflects this emphasis on the formation of the child's character. However, parents today are more likely to say their primary wish for their children is that they be happy. In pursuit of this goal they indulge their children, often unconsciously, to a degree that is startling to previous generations. All parents need to remember that true happiness comes through having character and discipline, and living a life of meaningful contribution -- not by having and doing whatever you wish. — Paula Polk Lillard

I have an Honors Degree in Drama from the University of Alberta, but when it was done I knew a life in modern theatre was not for me. While figuring out what the hell I might do instead of theatre, I spent a couple of days on a horror film doing stunt work. I'd never been behind the camera before, and I loved everything about it. I joined the local film co-op - The Film and Video Arts Society of Alberta - because you could trade skills for experience. These indie filmmakers were making their own stuff their own way, all the time. Instant education. — Karen Walton

A constitutional democracy is in serious trouble if its citizenry does not have a certain degree of education and civic virtue. — Phillip E. Johnson

The error of Socrates must be attributed to the false notion of unity from which he starts. Unity there should be, both of the family and of the state, but in some respects only. For there is a point at which a state may attain such a degree of unity as to be no longer a state, or at which, without actually ceasing to exist, it will become an inferior state, like harmony passing into unison, or rhythm which has been reduced to a single foot. The state, as I was saying, is a plurality which should be united and made into a community by education — Aristotle.

showed that even with the considerable increase in the average level of education over the course of the twentieth century, earned income inequality did not decrease. Qualification levels shifted upward: a high school diploma now represents what a grade school certificate used to mean, a college degree what a high school diploma used to stand for, and so on. — Thomas Piketty

I think a trillion dollars of student loans and a massive skills gap are precisely what happens to a society that actively promotes one form of education as the best course for the most people. I think the stigmas and stereotypes that keep so many people from pursuing a truly useful skill, begin with the mistaken belief that a four-year degree is somehow superior to all other forms of learning. — Mike Rowe

Education is political. — Noel Castree

His name was Ed. His nickname was Scrambled Ed. On leaving school he had taken a year out to decide what he wanted to study at University. The year passed and he still hadn't decided but went to University anyway.

'Academic' is defined as 'of, or relating to, institutionalized education and scholarship'. The same word, at the same time, also means 'having little practical use or value, as by being overly detailed, unengaging or theoretical'.
The latter definition seemed the most appropriate for Ed's university career which was a mash up of drinking, diving, surfing, kayaking and having his heart-broken. All washed down with a few pints.
After three years of that he was awarded a second class joint honours degree which he put in the recycling bin and went in search of something that would make him feel better. — Matt Padwick

It has long been recognized that getting an education is effective for bettering oneself and one's chances in the world. But a degree and an education are not necessarily synonymous. — Jane Jacobs

I'm not only a lawyer, I have a post doctorate degree in federal tax law from William and Mary. I work in serious scholarship and work in the United States federal tax court. My husband and I raised five kids. We've raised 23 foster children. We've applied ourselves to education reform. We started a charter school for at-risk kids. — Michele Bachmann

People differ to such a degree they agree on nothing,
Except death that is, and even on that they disagree.
Some say the soul goes on after the death of the body
While others claim the soul, with the body, dies too. — Mutannabi

What you're saying is a person whoever has a piece of paper can get a job to teach someone else to get a piece of paper, and it's those who have a piece of paper which say whether those who wish to have a piece of paper can have a piece of paper, and then those who received a piece of paper from those who have a piece of paper can either go on to higher employment or continue to teach other people who wish to have a piece of paper ... (Kang Dee, dolphin, talking about degrees) — Dani J. Caile

My degree was in education, but the idea of being a teacher lost out to being a reporter. I worked at a newspaper for a while, then went to New York and worked in PR at RCA and NBC, and at 'The United States Steel Hour,' a drama series. — Joan Ganz Cooney

Education is the best means-probably the only means-by which nations can cultivate a degree of objectivity about each other's behavior and intentions. It is the means by which Russians and Americans can come to understand each others' aspirations for peace and how the satisfactions of everyday life may be achieved ... — J. William Fulbright

...[I]t doesn't take an advanced degree to figure out that this education talk is less a strategy for mitigating inequality than it is a way of rationalizing it. To attribute economic results to school years finished and SAT scores achieved is to remove matters from the realm of, well, economics and to relocate them to the provinces of personal striving and individual intelligence. From this perspective, wages aren't what they are because one party (management) has a certain amount of power over the other (workers); wages are like that because the god of the market, being surpassingly fair, rewards those who show talent and gumption. Good people are those who get a gold star from their teacher in elementary school, a fat acceptance letter from a good college, and a good life when they graduate. All because they are the best. Those who don't pay attention in high school get to spend their days picking up discarded cans by the side of the road. Both outcomes are our own doing. — Thomas Frank

I used my history degree about twice a year whether I needed to or not. — Patricia Briggs

I understand now my father really thought he was doing me good. Education means a lot to Palestinians. We've become some of the most educated people in the world through our diaspora. We've had to be. When you ain't got land, your degree may be your only solid ground. May father felt (feels) that being a doctor would give me security. How can I explain that I'm not safe from anything if I don't write? — Suheir Hammad

I always wanted to be a musician from when I was kid. It was always a massive dream of mine. School was also really really important to me and having an education was top of my priority. So I really wanted to have a degree before I tried anything in the music industry. — Emeli Sande

Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree. — Thomas Jefferson

Most green-collar jobs are middle-skill jobs. That means they require more education that a high-school diploma, but less than a four-year degree. — Van Jones

The education of the doctor which goes on after he has his degree is, after all, the most important part of his education. — John Shaw Billings

I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men."
"Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything. — Jane Austen

No one has ever asked to see my degree certificate. — David Hockney

I have my master's degree in secondary education. I actually interned at a high school and student-taught at a high school for a year. — Nick Fradiani

It will be remembered, that a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is solemnly enjoined by most of the state constitutions, and particularly by our own, as a necessary safeguard against the danger of degeneracy, to which republics are liable, as well as other governments, though in a less degree than others. — James Madison

Relief, fear, and humiliation. Her parents paid for a pricey prep school education in D.C. She graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown with a degree in political science. She breezed through law school and finished with honors. A dozen megafirms offered her jobs after a federal court clerkship. The first twenty-nine years of her life had seen overwhelming success and little failure. To be discharged in such a manner was crushing. To be escorted out of the building was degrading. This was not just a minor bump in a long, rewarding career. — John Grisham

I hear, "Yes,
Let us more education invest!"
Whilst destitute,
Outside their gates doth rest,
Women, children, and men,
Poor and a hungered!
Odd that colleges fill,
Yet mercy is numbered. — Kari L. Greenaway

Women in the online gaming community have been harassed, threatened, and driven out. Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist media critic who documented such incidents, received support for her work, but also, in the words of a journalist, 'another wave of really aggressive, you know, violent personal threats, her accounts attempted to be hacked. And one man in Ontario took the step of making an online video game where you could punch Anita's image on the screen. And if you punched it multiple times, bruises and cuts would appear on her image.' The difference between these online gamers and the Taliban men who, last October, tried to murder fourteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai for speaking out about the right of Pakistani women to education is one of degree. Both are trying to silence and punish women for claiming voice, power, and the right to participate. Welcome to Manistan. — Rebecca Solnit

Most people thing that the purpose of education is to acquire a degree, a qualification. So what is this degree of B.A.? B.A.+D (D stands for degree) becomes BAD, and if you are more qualified you are M.A.+D = MAD! — Sai Baba

Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

A diploma is a piece of paper that is used to acquire another piece of paper: an employment contract. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

On education, in order to ensure that America remains a world leader, we must create an educated, skilled workforce in the vital areas of science, math, engineering and information technology. At the same time, we must give every student access to a college degree. — John F. Tierney

We all love stories, even if they're not true. As we grow up, one of the ways we learn about the world is through the stories we hear. Some are about particular events and personalities within our personal circles of family and friends. Some are part of the larger cultures we belong to - the myths, fables, and fairy tales about our own ways of life that have captivated people for generations. In stories that are told often, the line between fact and myth can become so blurred that we easily mistake one for the other. This is true of a story that many people believe about education, even though it's not real and never really was. It goes like this: Young children go to elementary school mainly to learn the basic skills of reading, writing, and mathematics. These skills are essential so they can do well academically in high school. If they go on to higher education and graduate with a good degree, they'll find a well-paid job and the country will prosper too. — Ken Robinson

The O.T.O. is an initiatory order similar to freemasonry. It doesn't provide educational monographs or standardized tests. Rather, it offers members the opportunity to experience a series of dramatic and magical initiations artfully designed to awaken and unfold the candidates' spiritual potentialities. If a member did nothing else with the O.T.O. career but undergo these degree experiences, they would be immeasurably rewarded. Serious members know, however, that there is much more to the O.T.O.'s magick than a two-hour ceremony performed once or twice a year. So profound are the Order's inner mysteries that to penetrate them requires not only a rich magical and spiritual education, but also a high level of meditative attainment. Members who wish to truly affiliate at this level are expected to seize responsibility for their own magical education and eventually rend the veil of the Order's mysteries for themselves. — Lon Milo DuQuette

Having a college degree does not make you educated. Always learning new things is what makes you educated. — Dan Pearce

Upper education used to open doors. Not so true anymore. The degree used to be a screening tool, but that is falling by the wayside as there are a glut of college grads on the market. — Dale Archer

Shoot, I must have lived such a doggoned sheltered life as a normal, independent American up there in the Last Frontier, schooled with only public education and a lowly state university degree, because obviously I haven't learned enough to dismiss common sense. — Sarah Palin

Society cannot but depend to a disproportionate degree on its capable few to develop and flourish. — Swami Kriyananda

I simply loved education. I mean, I always loved acting as well. It really was a major passion for me, but one I felt I could only fully explore once I'd completed my degree. — Jodhi May

Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. — Mary Wollstonecraft

Effective spiritual leadership does not come as a result of theological training or seminary degree, as important as education is. Jesus told His disciples, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you" (John 15:16). The sovereign selection of God gives great confidence to Christian workers. We can truly say, "I am here neither by selection of an individual nor election of a group but by the almighty appointment of God. — J. Oswald Sanders

The radical implication of the expansion of higher education has been disguised by a myth which dubs all educated working class people as middle class. By definition working class people are not intelligent, so if you've got a degree you must be middle class. This nonsense is reinforced by the fact that acedemic traditions are laden with class assumptions and are presented in upper class styles even in the Polytechnics. — Stefan Szczelkun

they argue that belief in a transcendent being conveys a genetic advantage: that couples who follow one of the three religions of the Book and maintain patriarchal values have more children than atheists or agnostics. You see less education among women, less hedonism and individualism. And to a large degree, this belief in transcendence can be passed on genetically. Conversions, or cases where people grow up to reject family values, are statistically insignificant. In the vast majority of cases, people stick with whatever metaphysical system they grow up in. That's why atheist humanism - the basis of any 'pluralist society' - is doomed. — Michel Houellebecq

I'm not one to insist that a man can't possibly make it without a lot of formal education, since my own formal education pretty much stopped when I graduated from Independence High School in 1901. And then there was a twenty-two-year gap, while I worked on a farm and as a railroad timekeeper and served in the Army and did a lot of other things, before I started to attend night classes at Kansas City Law School - and I left there in 1925 and never got a degree. But I've tried to increase my knowledge all my life by reading and reading and reading, — Harry Truman

I was going to get a degree in economics and be a teacher. But I couldn't afford to pay for the education. So I just got the MBA and not the doctorate. I loved it at Bain, and I've been there ever since. — Stephen Pagliuca

A new degree of intellectual power seems cheap at any price. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think if you have to pay for your education, you worry very seriously about you're going to do when you've got your degree. — James Dyson

But I decided I wanted more education and I had to make a choice between starting law school, which was interesting to me, and going for a graduate degree in engineering. — Daniel J. Evans

All civilized wo/men are prostitutes: Some sell what's between their legs; the rest sell what's between their ears. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Get your education. The number of guys who are blessed to be in the league is so small compared to the number of high school players [who want to play in the league]. But one thing you can do is get your college education. If you are blessed enough to get a scholarship to play college basketball, make sure you get your college degree, too, then move on from there. — Tim Duncan

A degree helps to a degree, but your work is largely what you create it to be. — Ryan Lilly

The greatest gift for yourself is to study to the highest degree. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I started attending community college when I was 14 or 15, just doing general education stuff like history and mathematics. Then I went on to California State University Long Beach to pursue a degree in journalism. And then I ended up dropping out to found Oculus. — Palmer Luckey

You didn't need a college degree to become one of the people who knew what was really going on. If you paid attention, you could pick things up on your own. — Jeannette Walls

The 21st century looks different. It's been very disruptive. It has created a lot of insecurity. We have to adjust to that, because the 21st century has real promise. Now, the higher-paying jobs of this new century are fantastic. The problem is, you have to have some level of higher education, maybe not a four-year degree, but some level of higher education, to get those jobs. — Marco Rubio

When they tried to draft me, I earned a college degree. — Jimmy Buffett

A genuinely free and educated man should be able to tune himself, as one tunes a musical instrument, absolutely arbitrarily, at his convenience at any time and to any degree, philosophically or philologically, critically or poetically, historically or rhetorically, in ancient or modern form. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

With modern technology it is the easiest of tasks for a media, guided by a narrow group of political manipulators, to speak constantly of democracy and freedom while urging regime changes everywhere on earth but at home. A curious condition of a republic based roughly on
the original Roman model is that it cannot allow true political parties to share in government. What then is a true political party: one that is based firmly in the interest of a class be it workers or fox hunters. Officially we have two parties which are in fact wings of a common
party of property with two right wings. Corporate wealth finances each. Since the property party controls every aspect of media they have had decades to create a false reality for a citizenry largely uneducated by public schools that teach conformity with an occasional advanced degree in consumerism. — Gore Vidal

Possibilities exist for you, to educate yourself, to the highest degree. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I, for one, struggle a little bit with a $250,000 education for a philosophy degree. They are a wonderful people, but we can't employ philosophers in manufacturing in the United States. We need a one- or two-year technical add-on for a high school. — Douglas R. Oberhelman

All over the world there are enormous numbers of smart, even gifted, people who harbor a passion for science. But that passion is unrequited. Surveys suggest that some 95 percent of Americans are "scientifically illiterate." That's just the same fraction as those African Americans, almost all of them slaves, who were illiterate just before the Civil War - when severe penalties were in force for anyone who taught a slave to read. Of course there's a degree of arbitrariness about any determination of illiteracy, whether it applies to language or to science. But anything like 95 percent illiteracy is extremely serious. — Carl Sagan

Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the procreation and education of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute in the highest degree to their parents' welfare. — Pope Paul VI

The idea that the majority of students attend a university for an education independent of the degree and grades is a hypocrisy everyone is happier not to expose. Occasionally some students do arrive for an education but rote and mechanical nature of the institution soon converts them to a less idealic attitude — Robert M. Pirsig

In ancient times there was no public education, except that of the forum, the theater, and the street, and the general degree of illiteracy was very high ... the early men of science were left very much to themselves and such a phrase as "the scientific culture of Alexandria in the third century B.C." does not cover any reality. In a sense, this is still true today; the real pioneers are so far ahead of the crowd (even a very literate crowd) that they remain almost alone ... — George Sarton

Those born in the poorest quarter of American society have an 8% chance of earning a college degree. Those born in the wealthiest quarter of American society have a 75% chance of earning a college degree. — David Brooks