“Team Obama is doing some fancy skating on this Columbia dealie.
Columbia has a School of General Studies.
To be admitted as a General Studies student one must absolutely meet two stringent requirements:
(A) Have a pulse.
(B) Have a check for the exhorbitant fees of whatever course you wish to take.
If you hang around long enough, and the University agrees to give credit for course work done elsewhere or “life experience,” one can actually receive a genuine Columbia College degree; without of course, ever actually having been matriculated at Columbia College
Cool, no? Lots of Universities have this interesting “General Studies” opportunity.
Of course, a genuine Columbia COLLEGE student would rather be caught with a dead zebra in his room than be seen pal-ing around with a General Studies student. Which is probably why “nobody” at Columbia knew the guy. (That’s because Columbia College is a genuine Ivy League school, to which a dumkopf like Barry, with his lackluster [if any} SATs, low HS Grades, and likely undistinguished history at deare olde Occidental, would never have been admitted, even with an interestingly slight case of pigmentation.)
Release his college records? Not bloody likely.?”
Your theory is one I have entertained, as well. If he matriculated at Columbia University, it surely must have been at the school of General Studies. If he had been a student at Columbia College, it’s impossible that noone remembers him at Columbia College. Actually, it’s even unlikely that no one remembers him from the School of General Studies, even though people pass in such a place like ships in the night. What we don’t know if whether someone who never took a Columbia College course or took just a few could wind up with a prestigious Columbia College undergraduate degree by a process of appeal to us General Studies and life experience as substitutes. If that happened, maybe pressure was brought or bought to make it happen. If such a pseudo Columbia College degree were given, would the year of the degree still be 1983?
That degree thing wasn't all that special, as I know several people who did it. The University's mechanism for it was simply to grant the BA from Columbia College. The requirements were fairly stringent, so whether or not he actually met them, or was granted grace and favor through his Ayres connection (A relative at Barnard), is a pretty fair question. It is weird that our boy did it so quickly.
As far as the year of the degree, I actually think he did graduate in '83.