Posted on 04/07/2005 9:57:22 AM PDT by MisterRepublican
WHITEWATER - At the off-campus house Johnny Lechner shares with three other UW- Whitewater students, the stairway to his attic bedroom is lined with photos dating back to his freshman year.
Lechner has lost track of many of the buddies that posed with him at these long- ago fraternity parties and Homecoming parades. They have moved on to new lives - careers, wives, children, mortgages - and that's just not Lechner's scene.
"I could have - should have - graduated many years ago, but I keep passing on the real world's invitation," said Lechner, 28, who is in his 11th year as a student in the University of Wisconsin System, the last 10 at UW-Whitewater. He's taken a full course load every semester except the current one, in which he's taking seven credits.
Lechner has completed 234 college credits, about 100 more than needed to graduate and so many that he's now paying the so-called "slacker tax."
System students who exceed 165 total credit hours - or 30 more than their degree programs require, whichever is higher - pay double tuition. The Board of Regents instituted the surcharge this school year as a none-too-subtle hint that a state-subsidized education has its limits.
The slacker tax doubles full- time tuition at UW-Whitewater (12 to 18 credits) to $4,816 a semester. With the surcharge, Lechner is paying $2,810 per semester for his seven-credit load.
It is a measure of Lechner's campus notoriety that many classmates call the slacker tax "The Johnny Lechner Rule." While he doesn't mind being known as "that guy who has been in college forever," Lechner declines to take credit for the Regents' sweeping policy change.
(Excerpt) Read more at madison.com ...
Wow.
That's pretty sad.
This guys sounds like a future professor.
Hmm...I was perfectly happy being fed from a bottle and crapping in my diapers. (Happiest 8 years of my life.) I wouldn't have a problem with this clown being a student forever except that he isn't really paying his own way - student tuition never does - he's $30,000 in debt to his fellow citizens and a perennial drag on the taxpayer.
He should become a professor and never have to leave the womb. Additionally he could presume to lecture the rest of us on how to live lives he's never had the opportunity to try. I always marvel at a pampered academic presuming to tell a guy who repairs transmissions how the real world is supposed to work, but they all do it.
Unavailable for comment...
*LOL*
Slacker tax, interesting!
Girls, stay away from this guy..
At my 10 year H.S. re-union, the guy voted most likely to succeed was still in college. At the 20th re-union he was all excited because he'd gotten out that year and gotten his "first" job. Everybody else was excited because after 20 years they were almost seeing the "light at the end of the tunnel".
Big difference; if they were on the GI Bill, then they acually did something for a living before they went to college.
"He's an adult. He's paying for college himself. I don't have a right to tell him to get a job," she said. "He's doing what he wants to do, and he's happy. I couldn't ask for a better kid."
Here's the source of the puke's problem.
It is the White Barry!
If I'm not mistaken back in the late 90's Congress made it essentially impossible to default on federally subsidized student loans.
College street person...
That's what I was wondering. Does he get grants, loans, are his parents paying? How does he afford this?
I wonder how long it took him to get potty-trained.
BA in 3 years (not counting the community college I went to WHILE STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL and the 1-year interruption by Desert Storm) so as to basically get my freshman and sophomore years out of the way.
Took summer I, II, and II classes and 20 credits every semester.
I enjoyed learning, but life is too short to not leave the ivy-lined womb.
I've got to admit, if I could've put off going into the Real World ®, I would've done it. Hell, he's paying his own way, and he's enjoying life. Isn't that what we all want?
"If I'm not mistaken back in the late 90's Congress made it essentially impossible to default on federally subsidized student loans."
No, you can still default. It's the bankruptcy discharge that's hard.
But, if you are an unemployed street person, with no prospects --- or in prison --- you can still get the discharge.
Read the whole article. He pays his own way (double the matriculation fees of other students because he has more credits than he needs to graduate).
Your sister sounds like my brother in law's first wife....... exactly like her! lol
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