Johnny Lechner and his 12-year college education at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater - Essay Example

is taking this year instead of the regular 12 to 18 credits, as he has already taken all the existing courses available, and has even unknowingly repeated some of them twice. The decision of almost doubling the fees has come possibly in reaction to Lechners long stay at the institution, and Wisconsinites have dubbed it the Johnny Lechner rule. It is a valid decision, one that will encourage students to treat colleges and universities for what they are, venues for focused learning, for quenching intellectual thirst and gearing an individual towards becoming a useful member of the society.

There are those that consider that this decision will be hard on those like Lechner. In Lechners defense, it must be said that he has paid his own fees for the last ten years, by working part time in order to support himself and through student loans, since his parents supported him only for the first two years of his college life. A man can strive to learn more and more for the sake of learning itself, and here is a man that tries to do his bit for society, and volunteers with numerous organizations, including Habitat for Humanity, the UW-Whitewater Prairie Restoration Project and Camp Getaway for inner-city Chicago children with AIDS.

He is also a good student, who is regular in class, recently made the dean’s list with a 4.0 grade-point average for a semester and has got good grades throughout, even managing straight As in one semester. So one knows that he is not too weak a student to graduate, and is not graduating out of intention, not incapability. One may also argue that a persons life need not necessarily follow a particular mold, that includes education, employment, marriage and retirement, and eventual death, and as long as he or she is not a burden on society a person may want to learn as much as possible, and study in order to do this.

But this is where the contradiction comes in. Lechner has, in fact, been a burden on society these past years, because the