Lessons in Higher Learning (Editorial)

We join higher education officials in hailing the news that a record number of students have enrolled in Arkansas’ colleges and universities this fall. 

But we must qualify the good news: Record college enrollment is a good thing; retaining students, instilling in them a lifelong love for learning and then graduating them – that would be even better. Better still? Citizen commitment to that goal.

Arkansas’ colleges and universities increasingly have devoted taxpayer dollars to advertising in an effort to recruit students. And, unlike some skeptical state legislators, we don’t think that’s a waste of money.

Ideally, this state’s parents would be the ones propelling Arkansas’ students into college, emphasizing not only the heavily documented fact that more education means more earning potential, but also that education is an unqualified good. Unfortunately, many parents in Arkansas fail in this duty.

We think fear underlies that tragic failure, which has trapped Arkansas and its citizens in a cycle of underachievement.

Many parents, themselves lacking a college degree, fear what they don’t know. They fear their children becoming more successful than themselves, moving away physically and perhaps emotionally, and having less respect for those who raised them.

Also, college is expensive, and parents – again, particularly those without college degrees who consequently are often trapped in low-paying jobs – fear that expense.

Both fears are, like most fears, self-defeating. Parents who put their children’s futures ahead of their fears will earn their children’s respect and gratitude, not their contempt. The expense is a real concern, but one that can be tamed through the planning, creativity and determination of both college-bound child and parent. Even when parents can provide little financial support, their emotional support can more than compensate.

Arkansas’ colleges and universities are doing what too many parents have failed to do: Telling kids education is not just the key to a more prosperous future but the key to a richer, fuller life.

What we want to see now is parents, higher education officials and all the state’s citizens working together to ensure that high school graduates who enter college – whether in Arkansas or out – will take advantage of the opportunity, will graduate and will pass on respect for education to their own children. That’s a family value that benefits everyone.