Snob Nation
by Fawn Johnson
National Journal
March 5, 2012
Is President Barack Obama a snob? A brief look at his personal education might make you think so. He attended the prestigious Punahou prep school in Hawaii. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review. If I had seen that resume at age 18, I would have rated him high on the snob meter knowing nothing more about him. (I was starting college with lots of prep-school classmates, which made me acutely self conscious about my public school education.) Personally, I don’t know if Obama is a snob, and I don’t care. I figure that as president, he’s entitled either way.
I am intrigued, though, with Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum’s use of the sassy slur to lambast Obama for his efforts to increase college attendance and graduation. “What a snob,” Santorum said, railing about “liberal” college professors “trying to indoctrinate” impressionable teens. The huffy reactions to Santorum’s rants are to be expected. He’s good at eliciting them. An essay from the Harvard Crimson entitled “In Defense of Snobbery,” which is quite well written, is just one sample of the many people who disagree with Santorum.
But I wonder if Santorum is on to something. It has become increasingly clear over the last 20 to 30 years that college is a necessary component of a middle class lifestyle in America. Should it be that way? Do we want to be the kind of country where a mortar board is a de facto requirement for being a part of the community? Perhaps Santorum is simply expressing the frustration many people feel that the achievement goal posts keep moving.
It’s certainly easier to get a job with a college degree. The unemployment rate for
