Education Comments from Mark Painter

Excerpt of an email from the campaign of Mark Painter, Democratic candidate for the 146th state house.

You may have heard that Rick Santorum was talking about college a couple of weeks ago. He called President Obama a snob for wanting to help kids go to college and warned that college indoctrinates kids and causes them to lose their faith.

Yes, Rick Santorum (B.A., M.B.A., J.D.) thinks college is bad for you. (Not for him, just you.) That's not what my dad thought. My dad grew up in a Lutheran orphanage and never got past the eighth grade. But I don't remember him ever telling me, "Mark, I don't want you going to college. Because you might stop going to church!" Actually, what he told me was that I should get myself an education and get a better job than the one he had. I finished high school and was fortunate enough to get a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, earn two degrees and make something of myself. But the politicians in Harrisburg must agree with Rick Santorum. Because, for the second year in a row, they're proposing catastrophic cuts to our state universities.

If they have their way, it will be harder for young people today to do what I did: go to college, work hard, improve themselves, and become more productive members of society. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I think everyone who is capable of earning a degree and wants to go to college should get that opportunity.