AK Smith, what a coincidence! As a studious schoolgirl, I too was asked where I wanted to go to school, and I said that I wanted to go to Harvard and join a fraternity.

Naturally, I was laughed at.

I earned my Ph.D. at Harvard AND earned 100% of my own expenses AND paid off my student loans. My best friend and I became the first two female grad students to become members of the Hasty Pudding. So, I -did- actually fulfill my childhood dream.

No, it wasn't easy. It's never been easy. But I was as proud the day of President Faust's inauguration as I was the day I graduated.

There will be more of us. Lots, lots more.

Apologies. I got your name wrong the first time.

What you've said about class, class consciousness, and class mobility is disturbing, unsurprising, likely to stay with me for a long time, and a cause for reflection.

Just as I live with and work with people of all races, religions, and walks of life now, I knew people from a variety of backgrounds in school. They were, however, united by two things: intellect and drive. I think now, looking back, I saw them as pioneers, not "climbers."

To some extent, I know I -did- cast myself loose. My parents prepared me to. But I found other communities at which I am at peace, if not at rest.

I always valued American higher education not just for its own sake but for what was, in the past, the possibility of someone of outstanding ability doing what Bill Clinton did: rising from poverty to the highest office in the land. (Note: let's not discuss what else he did; his making it to the presidence was significant in and of itself.) I hope that opportunity can remain available. I would hate to see even more of a caste system afflicting education.

You asked Holly a good question. I can't answer for Holly, but I can answer for me.

I went with my skillsets, which were for the humanities. Part of my decision was sheer love of the subject: most of it, in fact. But I do remember being steered away from math and business as a young girl.

That definitely cut my earning potential significantly, and if I didn't realize it then, I do now. However, I can't complain. I'm making more money than I ever dreamed I would, with the possibility of more to come AND I got the kind of education I wanted on my terms and through my own efforts, because I had no legacy rights.

Let me ask you one. You focused on maximizing earnings for your family. Congratulations. It can't have been easy, and it sounds like you did it the solid way. Was any of your education joyful and exciting? Would you do it the same way?

If I were to do it over, I think I'd do a combined Ph.D./J.D. That's all I'd change, but it would have significantly boosted my earning power.

I admit it: I'm very proud of the men and women of Harvard who made this decision.

I was proud in 1977 when Sally Ride went into space.

And, speaking of pride, here's another one I'm proud of.

"Earlier today we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, We, the people. It is a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed, on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that We, the people. I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision I have finally been included in We, the people."

Barbara Jordan said that.

There's something wrong when people feel the desire to degrade outstanding achievement. And not with the people achieving it.

From The New York Times, November 13, 1988:

>>>>>In 1926 Fitzgerald published one of his finest stories, ''The Rich Boy,'' whose narrator begins it with the words ''Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.'' >>>>>

I don't think I could have done what you did. And I agree with you. It's sickening to see people "priced out of the market" for higher education. My undergraduate college now costs 10 times per year what my parents paid, and the grants that let me get through grad school with only $5K in loans have definitely dried up. So I don't know if I could do it now, either.

You know what Peter Jackson says: "Art is never finished, only abandoned."

At some point, you have to let go.

Been there, done that. Had the panic attack(s).

I don't know how we can go on saying it without being in bad faith, either, AKA Smith. For me, it was the case. For many babyboomers, it certainly was -- although I haven't got a McMansion, don't want one, and at current real estate prices, can't afford what I might want where I want it.

There -is- opportunity, but the pipeline is being squeezed narrower and narrower. I agree with you. But the last thing I think we can afford to say is "oh, what's the use?" Because that way lies overt class stratification, which is worse than the hypocritical muddle we've got now.

I think we have to take it back. I don't know what "it" is, but if "it" is the sort of thing that puts an academic aristocrat in Mass. Hall or puts a woman like Barbara Jordan on the Watergate investigation, or takes Bill Clinton and -- though I hate his guts -- Clarence Thomas up from poverty, I think "it's" worth keeping. And "it" is what the current authorities don't seem to want us to have. I don't think they want us to value it. Or believe it's possible anymore.

You're right. I don't see how we can. At the same time, I don't see how we can't not try.