George objects that colleges should not be blamed for the failure of a large number of students to graduate within six years. Then again, colleges often knowingly admit students who are unprepared for true college-level work and bound to fail.

In addition, many students have been known to complain, in vain, that the courses they need to graduate are not available because they are not offered frequently enough or are closed due to heavy enrollment.

George is of course quite right that some students simply are too lazy or frivolous to bother earning enough credits to graduate sooner rather than later, if at all. And, as he says, many cannot — that is, lack the skills and background knowledge to — meet their credit requirements.

But whose fault is the latter? Many students have been failed, scandalously failed, by an incompetent and self-serving K-12 system that leaves them unprepared for college education. How may higher educators, in particular the leaders of teacher colleges, have over the last several decades abetted K-12 failure by not protesting it loudly and taking the lead against it?

Too few, for they were busy protecting the status quo — notably their own self-interest.