Dedicated Student Gets Degree After 19 Years of Part-Time Study

Kathy Vitzthum made a promise to her dying father that she would get her college degree -- even though it would take her 19 years.

By . Posted on April 27 2011

For many people—especially those juggling family and work obligations—it can be difficult to stick with a college degree. Kathy Vitzthum thought many times about dropping out of her accounting program at Iowa State University: She had two children and a job at Electronic Technology Corp. She’d only enrolled in the first place because her boss offered her a promotion and tuition reimbursement if she took a few accounting courses.

Because she only had enough time to take one class at a time, it took her seven years to complete the coursework her boss had asked her to take on. She received the promotion as promised, and wasn’t planning to continue on to a degree. But a request from her father, who was dying of cancer, made her think twice.

“He said to me, ‘You know Kathy, you’re this far, why don’t you just keep going and get your degree?’” Vitzthum said.

She protested that, at the rate she was going, she might not graduate until she was 50 years old. Her father said, “You’re going to be 50 anyway, so you might as well keep going.”

Before he passed away 11 years ago, he made her promise that she would finish. And he made her a promise in turn: Vitzthum’s parents had agreed to give each of their children a valuable gift when they graduated from college, and Vitzthum was obsessed with an antique curio cabinet she’d come across and knew that she couldn’t afford. After she committed to graduating from college, her parents bought the cabinet for her. Her father told her, “I’m not going to be around when you graduate, so I’ll give this to you on loan now.”

Since then, Vitzthum has looked at that cabinet every day and remembered the promise she made to her father. Despite a busy life as wife, mother, and full-time employee, she’s taken one course every semester for the last 19 years. And finally, at the age of 48, she graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in accounting—and she was thrilled to accept full ownership of that curio cabinet that she’d borrowed for more than a decade.

Filed under: General Interest,

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