Wisconsin governor Scott Walker did not complete his degree at Marquette. While the Constitution doesn’t make college graduation a requirement for holding the office he’s seeking (the presidency), many of Walker’s opponents are acting as if it should.

Pushing back against those who scoff at a candidate just because he lacks a college degree, Gregory Weiner argues in this Federalist piece that Walker’s educational credentials do not matter. Weiner writes, “When Walker says he got into college largely to get a job and got out early to take one, he speaks for the vocational ethos that governs higher education today. It is the product in no small part of political rhetoric that encourages universal coverage in the same tones in which it speaks of universal preschool: as the pathway to prosperity.”

As PBC readers understand, college degrees are neither necessary nor sufficient for prosperity, but there’s a huge, politically connected industry that stands to benefit from promulgating the false belief that success depends on having the right amount of formal education.

Nor, Weiner argues, is formal education, even if it leads to a degree, necessarily the same as being well educated. He alludes to a snotty question by Howard Dean about Walker, “How well educated is this guy?” His response is razor sharp: “Dean intended the question … to be contemptuous. Why, though, ask it of Walker alone? In the era of technical training masquerading as education, a four-year degree should not shield others from that inquiry. Stand all the candidates next to Madison or Lincoln. In a serious, classical and enduring sense, how well education are any of them?”

Bravo!

It’s also worth observing that the current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has made a hideous mess of things despite his degrees from prestigious universities.