Earlier this month, President Obama lamented that the United States has fallen to 12th in the world in college graduation among young adults.
Once we were No. 1.
Only about 40 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds in the U.S. have at least a two-year college degree, according to the College Board.
What we have here is a failure to matriculate.
The College Board Advocacy and Policy Center - and the president - are behind a push to lift that number to 55 percent by 2025, which would put the us roughly on par with other industrialized nations such as Canada and Russia.
Another thought: Perhaps young Americans are blending work and schooling out of financial necessity and it's changing our nation's higher-education metabolism.
We forget, but there was a time in the 20th century when a college degree was not required to get a head start on the American dream.
For example, it took William "Bill" Boyd, of Tullahoma, Tenn., more than four decades to finish college. In the meantime, he managed a solid, middle-class life as
an engineering associate at Arnold Engineering Development Center.
Boyd, 82, a Korean War-era Navy veteran, was awarded a bachelor's degree earlier this month during commencement ceremonies at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.
"I stood up and the president of the college went through a rigmarole," Boyd said. "It brought tears and all kinds of applause."
With fewer than half of Tennessee's college students earning bachelor's degrees within six years of first enrolling in college, it's not unusual for college careers to stretch a decade or more. Still, an octogenarian in a cap and gown is rare.
I spoke to Boyd on the telephone last week. I wanted to know what drove him to re-enroll in college so late in life. Was he setting an example for his grandchildren? Had he always had a burning desire to return to the classroom?
It turns out his motives were more pedestrian and involved easy access to online learning.
He said his two daughters urged him to look into taking online classes during a family dinner a few years ago. He graduated from Motlow State Community College decades ago and was only about 30 credit hours short of earning a bachelor's degree when he made the final push.
Boyd, who still works occasionally as a substitute teacher in Coffee County, retired from AEDC in 1984.
After doing some research during one of his sojourns to his winter home in Florida, he discovered he could complete his degree online with only occasional visits to the MTSU campus.
Maybe that's the future. The baby-boomer model of living in a dorm and finishing college in a four- to six-year burst may become outdated, if it hasn't already. Workers of the future may choose to stitch together their higher education over decades, if not a lifetime.
Boyd might be prophetic when he says: "Everyone has to make up their own mind (about completing college). They can't be pushed."
Or as Albert Einstein once observed: "Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it."
To suggest a human-interest story, e-mail Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or call 423-757-6645.