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Learning, Earnings Linked, Chancellor Says

The Advertiser-Tribune | May 3, 2008

Leilani Kiser

A state leader says he stood on the shoulders of people he never met.

Eric Fingerhut, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, told Terra Community College graduates people he never knew helped make it financially possible for him to go to college. Millions of people statewide pay taxes to support state colleges, he said.

During Friday's commencement ceremony, Fingerhut said businesses are looking to locate in states with high college graduation rates, and his main goal as the chancellor is to increase the college degree attainment rate in Ohio. The level of education a person obtains is the largest indicator of the money he or she will earn, he said.

"The more you learn, the more you earn," Fingerhut said.

Fostoria resident Leilani Kiser, president of Phi Theta Kappa, told her classmates college was not an option when she was younger because she grew up in an economically challenged situation and was not a good student.

"I was just happy to have that piece of paper," Kiser said.

Kiser said she suffered a devastating injury and lost two fingers. She learned her employer planned to close the factory in which she worked. She said she turned to Terra and was nervous her first quarter because she was older than most of her classmates and wasn't sure she had the ability to learn.

"You are never too old to learn," Kiser said.