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Beating the odds

I've been thinking a lot about graduation lately. Not just high school, but college graduation too.
I wonder how many people who start college actually finish. I was trying to look up some statistics, but I'm not that patient and nothing really helpful was coming up on the front page of google!
However I did notice some statistics from one particular college that compared itself to other colleges.
Their bragging rights? 54% of people who started college in the 4 year program graduated in 4 years or less. That was higher than the other colleges it had listed. I don't know how many of the 46% that didn't graduate in 4 years or less didn't graduate at all, or how many just took 5 years to graduate but 54% was actually higher than I expected.
Part of the thing I have been thinking about is the number of people who start but don't finish. I am one of those people. I went to college for two years for Elementary Education. After 2 years two things happened that influenced my decision to "drop out". The first was I decided I didn't really want to be a kindergarten teacher, the second was I met a guy who lived far away from my college.
So even though I loved the social aspect of college, and I loved the homework and classes and teachers (yes I'm a geek) I left college to pursue my MRS. Degree.
Do I regret dropping out? Sometimes yes, but most of the time no. I wouldn't trade a college diploma for my husband or my daughter. Besides, all it would do for me now is give me a very expensive piece of paper to look at. Am I encouraging people to drop out and get married- NO! At times I wish I had a piece of paper. Just to prove I didn't quit. I don't look at it as I quit though. I look at it more as I realized what God wanted me to do.
Graduating from college is a huge milestone, it must be so fun to send out graduation announcements and receive graduation presents and praise from everyone you know. It must be so rewarding to look at your diploma and know how hard you worked for it. I admire people who graduate college.
Like I said earlier, there are very few times in my life I look back and say "man, I wish I had graduated" but never to I look at anyone that has graduated and say "man, you wasted time and money." Even if they are a stay at home mom like me.
So if you're a college graduate- Congratulations. I admire you. If you are a college graduate who is now a stay at home mom (or dad) I admire you even more! If you, like me "dropped out" or never went so you could start a family- you're not a loser! God has big plans for you too!

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