Eleventh-year senior Johnny Lechner, 28, center, mingles with classmates Wednesday on the UW-Whitewater campus. He started attending classes full time in 1994, "before the Internet," as he likes to say. Lechner plans to be back at UW-Whitewater for a 12th and final year this fall.

The Real World Can Wait

WHITEWATER - At the off-campus house Johnny Lechner shares with three other UW- Whitewater students, the stairway to his attic bedroom is lined with photos dating back to his freshman year.

Lechner has lost track of many of the buddies that posed with him at these long- ago fraternity parties and Homecoming parades. They have moved on to new lives - careers, wives, children, mortgages - and that's just not Lechner's scene.

"I could have - should have - graduated many years ago, but I keep passing on the real world's invitation," said Lechner, 28, who is in his 11th year as a student in the University of Wisconsin System, the last 10 at UW-Whitewater. He's taken a full course load every semester except the current one, in which he's taking seven credits.

Lechner has completed 234 college credits, about 100 more than needed to graduate and so many that he's now paying the so-called "slacker tax."

System students who exceed 165 total credit hours - or 30 more than their degree programs require, whichever is higher - pay double tuition. The Board of Regents instituted the surcharge this school year as a none-too-subtle hint that a state-subsidized education has its limits.

The slacker tax doubles full- time tuition at UW-Whitewater (12 to 18 credits) to $4,816 a semester. With the surcharge, Lechner is paying $2,810 per semester for his seven-credit load.

It is a measure of Lechner's campus notoriety that many classmates call the slacker tax "The Johnny Lechner Rule." While he doesn't mind being known as "that guy who has been in college forever," Lechner declines to take credit for the Regents' sweeping policy change.


"I've fallen into some sort of a comfort zone here," he said. "I think deep down inside I have a fear of getting into the next phase of my life."

His middle-class parents pitched in financially for the first two years. Now he owes $30,000 in student loans but otherwise pays as he goes, using money earned as a waiter at the Janesville Olive Garden.

The per-credit surcharge he's paying is a bitter pill, but he reasons that it's comparable to the tuition he'd pay out of state. His major has zigged and zagged over the years, with stops at health education, theater and communications. He even tried women's studies.

"I think they'll end up kind of balling it all together as a liberal studies major, with a lot of emphasis areas," he said. He hopes to one day work with troubled youth.

Regardless of the outcome, Lechner said he'll be back for a 12th year. He's pretty sure it will be his last.


"If you look at his transcripts, he's really a very good student. He's actually taken some classes over again, even though he got a B."


Sophomore Jenny Zinda, 20, hangs out with Lechner and said she doesn't think of him as old. Zinda was in fourth grade when Lechner was a college freshman.

"Some girls say it's weird that he's still here, but the bottom line is they all want him," Zinda said. "Everyone knows him and there's a certain excitability about being friends with and dating Johnny Lechner."

Senior John Koskinen, 22, Lechner's best friend, estimates that eight out of 10 students know Lechner or have heard of him. Last year, Lechner even had a car in the Homecoming parade with the sign, "Been in college for 10 years."

"He's one of those people in life who actually has the guts to do what makes him happy," Koskinen said. "He's one of the happiest people in the entire world, and if you reach that level of happiness, why not keep doing it?"

http://www.madison.com/ws...4&ntpid=1#

I understand the "Loser" part...but where does "Hero" come from??

mmm'kay

Loser: 2
Hero: 0

Stax said:

Byron said:

Perfect.

Neither. Good for him I say. People should all do what they like to do. He's only 28, still got 30+ years to work.