Opinion: The Great Lie of the Lone Star College System

One gorgeous fall afternoon, I was sitting in a Market Street café, sipping a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon and pondering the mass of humanity before me. I was working on some sort of poetic metaphor on success, capitalism and the American dream, when I was approached by an old acquaintance.

I had not seen her in just over a decade when we had been in high school together, and I had not particularly missed her. We exchanged the awkward pleasantries that one does during such encounters, and I asked her what she was doing these days.

When she responded, I had heard it a dozen times before. It ran like a keyworded Boolean search on procrastination. “Right now…time off…next semester….MoCo…basics…”

I always sigh about the irony of community college in this area. It’s so accessible that it’s in-accessed. I agree wholeheartedly that college is only one way to success. Not everyone can or should attend. Even for those that do, education is a tool, not a guarantee.

However, there is no excuse for anyone in this area who wants an education, not to have one. Lone Star is affordable, accessible, and there are some programs in which a student could earn a Master's degree without leaving the Woodlands. As for the quality, I attended North Harris for a time, and found it to be an excellent school, even superseding my university education in some areas.

Education, like many things, is what you make of it. Wandering paths are not necessarily wrong, and success is how you define it. But, I am frustrated by the apathy with which so many people treat our community college system. They cheat themselves by believing that next semester will be the semester. As the years float by term-by-term, suddenly the opportunity is lost.

There is no such thing as procrastination. Procrastination is simply a choice to do something else. If college is what you want, then go after it. If not, define your own success and pursue it with reckless abandon. You will not achieve your potential leaving yourself a backdoor of, “maybe,” or “next semester.” It is not wrong not to go to college. But, if you lie to yourself, all you will have to show for it is wasted youth.