Nevada not the center of the collegiate universe

Not nine months after being threatened with closure, the Douglas campus of Western Nevada College posted a 29-student increase in the number of students enrolled. That doesn't seem like many, but when you only have 699 students, it marks a better than 4-percent-increase in enrollment.

Nevada's college system has taken a lot of heat lately, including a report claiming the graduation rates are the second lowest in the country.

According to a report published in "The Chronicle of Higher Education," 37.1 percent of college students in Nevada graduate with a degree.

Not many people come to Nevada to go to college, according to the report, which said 86 percent of all freshmen enrolled in college in 2006 graduated from a Nevada high school the previous year, thanks in part to the Millenium Scholarship.

We've never claimed Nevada is an educational star. The state's 35th in population and our institutions are still very much on the frontier.

While we're growing a little slower, the state is still one of the fastest growing in the nation. People come here to work in the casinos and in construction because they don't have to have a college degree to make a living. That translates into a higher per-capita personal income than the rest of the nation and a lower poverty rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That's one of the reasons why the state has been so hard hit by the recent downturn.

Higher entrance requirements and the increased cost of going to college make getting a degree more difficult than ever.

College isn't for everyone. Fortunately we live in a state where it doesn't have to be.