Learning, earnings linked, speaker says

By Jill Gosche, jgosche@advertiser-tribune.com

FREMONT — 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,” he 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,” she 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,” she said.

Also among the 227 graduates was Martha Brundage of Tiffin, a 2006 graduate of Old Fort High School, who received a community service award. She completed degrees in plastics and plastics coloring.

Brundage said she has accepted a job at Washington Penn Plastic Co. Inc. in Washington, Pa., which is south of Pittsburgh.

She said she will be a color matching laboratory technician in the field she studied.

“It’s worked out well,” she said.

Several members of Brundage’s family also attended Terra.

She said her mom went back to Terra and received a degree in medical and administration. Her brother was enrolled in the post-secondary enrollment options program as a junior and senior and received his associate’s degree halfway through his freshman year of college. She said her sister started college elsewhere and transferred back to Terra.

“My family’s kind of covered every aspect that Terra offers,” she said. “My dad’s the only one that hasn’t gone.”

Brundage said she is meeting her goals of graduating, finding a job and moving. She said she hopes to keep learning.

“There’s so much to learn,” she said. “I never thought I’d be excited to learn.”