by Robert Reardon, Columnist
("Eye to the Future" is a column published in each issue of The Humanitarian, the newsletter for Humanitarian Society members.)

I read with interest the other day where a community college in the Houston, TX. area was criticized for disallowing about 25% of its student body from returning to campus this fall because the students in question had either failed to meet existing requirements for moving to the next year or had exhausted their time allowed for making up courses peviously failed. The college president indicated that all the college was doing was purging itself of students who were simply not prepared to handle college material or who had show a lack of interest in complying with the prevailing and known requirements. For this, the college and the president were soundly criticized by those who contended that many students were losing an opportunity to improve themselves in today's society.

I would take a much different view of this. All those students who were genuinely interested in improving themselves were on campus. They had met the requirements for moving up. They were not failing courses. On the other hand, students who can't or won't meet even basic requirements, even after repeated chances, ought to be dumped. For one thing, college may not be right for them. Perhaps they would do better in a trade or service occupation. For another thing, it is wrong for them to take seats away from potentially good students who are interested in doing well and meeting requirements.

In the long run, we are served best by providing opportunity to those who can take advantage of it instead of artificially buffering the failure of those who can't or won't. No student interested in succeeding should be denied a seat because it is currently held by a slackard. And no slackard should see community college as a buffer against the real working world. Unfortunately, in at least one college where this policy was implemented, the result was harsh criticism. Perhaps we in the community should be more vigorous in our support of "tough academic love"a> in our community colleges. In so doing, we can support the good students and perhaps "wake up" the slackards.