4-5-3...No, It's Not An Odd Double Play

Brandon Jennings...zero college...monster game


I'll admit that it was a LONG time ago that I was enrolled as a student-athlete in college. I think it was shortly after Dr. Naismith cut the bottom out of the peach basket that I began my illustrious career at Kansas State Teacher's College (the school was so enamored of my presence, they changed the name right after I graduated to Emporia State U.) Anyway, like everyone in those days, I took four years to graduate from college with an actual degree. Having added a second major halfway through, I was forced to take more than 20 credits my last two semesters in order to get out in the requisite four years and avoid the shame of being a slacker...back when that WAS shameful! A full-time load in those days was 16 credits, and most people I knew generally took 18 each semester. It still seemed to leave plenty of free time for my non-athlete dorm mates, though there was no Playstation, Guitar Hero or social networking sites like Facebook to further distract them, and cell phones were but a science fiction anomaly like space stations. What happened?
It seems that somewhere between 1972 and now, a college degree burdened students with five years of mostly tedious lectures and group projects in which at least one idiot refused to be productive and still wanted to get credit with the group. Some have even begun to stretch that into five and a half years though I don't understand why...maybe someone else is paying. But looming like a spectre over the horizon: the three-year degree! Imagine the shock waves this would create! The latest school to propose this radical idea is tiny (I suspect) Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York. Publicists for the school indicate that such an innovative idea could save students a minimum of $40,000! I'm thinking, "Wow! I don't think I spent that much for my bachelor's degree and master's degree COMBINED! And it turns out that this is what ONE YEAR costs: tuition of $32,500 and room and board of 9 grand. That must be some education. Of course, according to the college, the program would be available to only a few students:"the ones who graduate from high school college-ready." Ouch! There's a shot across the bow of high schools everywhere.
This is by no means the first program to attempt this. Upper Iowa University has had such a program on the books for five years; sadly, though, only five students have attempted the rigor of the 3-year program, and none have completed it in that amount of time.
That's why Brandon Jennings is so smart. The NCAA prohibits high schoolers from being drafted these days (having seen how disatrous that was for Kobe and LeBron!), so would-be pros are being forced to attend a year of college...not to graduate, mind you...just to get a year older. Jennings outsmarted everyone and signed for big bucks to play professionally in Italy. However, his paychecks have been highly irregular in their timing, and I'm not sure he'd be a poster child for mass migration of high schoolers, but at least he's getting paid instead of taking up space in a classroom...leaving more room and instructor contact for those five-year students, most of whom probably view the state of the economy as one more reason to go right to graduate school...though probably not a Hartwick College.