In 2 College Towns, Ambivalence About the College Route

David Goldman, AP Images

They’re the neighbors you might not know. They cook meals and fix boilers, sit in back offices and stand behind counters. College towns around the nation teem with people who don’t have a degree. And typically, they don’t think about higher education the same way deans, professors, and students do.

That much was clear in central Virginia this week. With the election upon us, The Chronicle visited two different locales, each home to a university. Residents who hadn’t been to, or hadn’t finished, college were ambivalent about it. Though many saw it as the primary ticket to success in America, most said it’s a ticket too difficult and costly to punch.

An overwhelming number of white voters — especially men — without a college degree voted for Donald Trump this week, revealing a major socioeconomic rift. Those who’ve spent their lives in higher education might shake their heads in disbelief. Some imagine such people as ignorant rubes. Yet how many of those academic types have really listened to them?

Those on the other side of the education divide often feel the system is working against them. Here in Virginia, several people who’ve long lived in the shadow of a college said society puts too much stock in degrees, the lack of which can keep otherwise deserving employees from getting promotions and better pay. Beyond earnings, some challenged the notion that going to college is the only way to a happy, rewarding life.

“That’s BS,” said Tom Pairet, a Republican who was born and raised in Farmville, a rural town of 8,000. “If you’re determined and focused, you can succeed.”

Mr. Pairet, 61, has nothing against higher education. He speaks highly of nearby Longwood University, which his business depends on. Pairet’s, the store he owns on North Main Street, is a licensed vendor of Longwood apparel, and Lancers gear accounts for the bulk of his business. The best-selling T-shirt asks “Where the Hell is Farmville, Va.?”

Walking through colorful rows of clothing on Election Day, Mr. Pairet, a white-haired fellow with a pen tucked into his collar, said college suits some people but not others. He put himself in the latter category, recalling his struggle to focus in high school. “I would read something and then veer right off,” he said, sweeping his index finger to one side. Decades later, he learned that he has ADHD. “I never got the attention you need in order to get a good education.”

He was resourceful, though. In the early 1980s, he took a screen-printing course, eventually teaching himself to use the M&R Gauntlet Revolver, a massive screen-printing machine up on the second floor that cranks out eight-color T-shirts. That know-how let him transform Pairet’s, which his grandfather had started as an appliance store, into a sustainable business that now serves a stable niche of Longwood students and alumni. “I knew it would be here for the rest of my life,” he said, nodding at a mother and daughter browsing for sweatshirts.

Mr. Pairet’s two children have taken very different paths. His daughter, Samantha, a junior at the College of Charleston, plans to become an orthodontist. Though he winced when he mentioned the $40,000 a year in tuition, he was visibly proud of her.

His son, Thomas, loves working on trucks. Although he graduated near the top of his class at Fork Union Military Academy this spring, he had no interest in four-year colleges. “At the school, there was enormous pressure for him to go to college — an elite college,” Mr. Pairet said. “It made him mad.” The younger Mr. Pairet is now enrolled in the diesel-technician program at Southside Community College. He makes $25 an hour fixing engines on the side.

Over the years, Mr. Pairet has seen many high-school graduates leave Farmville for college, only to move back a few months later. To him that suggests a problem. “College is not for everybody,” he said. “Too many people are putting too much emphasis on one kind of higher education, and not enough emphasis on the practical skills that society really needs.”

A Sense of Being Stuck

There’s no way around it: People with college degrees earn more than those with only a high-school diploma. And the former are better off in other ways, too, like measures of well-being. But most Americans don’t have that seemingly crucial credential.

Recently, Andrew P. Kelly, senior vice president for strategy and policy at the University of North Carolina, set out to learn more about what adults untethered to higher education actually think about it. Mr. Kelly, who previously directed the Center on Higher Education Reform at the American Enterprise Institute, commissioned a survey of high-school graduates between the ages of 25 and 44 who lacked a college degree.

His report last year, “High Costs, Uncertain Benefits,” offers some compelling insights. One finding: Two-fifths of respondents were satisfied with their level of education. “As much as it might pain the edu-intelligentsia to admit,” Mr. Kelly wrote in a commentary describing his research in Forbes, “some paths to happiness do not run through college.” He also found that while most respondents saw higher education as necessary, many believed it was too pricey and ill-suited to working parents.

Tommy and Stacey Parmenter can relate to that frustration, the sense of being stuck. On Monday night, in the living room of their three-bedroom bungalow in Charlottesville, the couple described their mixed feelings about college. Although they live just two miles from the University of Virginia, both have always considered a degree of any kind well beyond their reach.

Mr. Parmenter, 40, has lived in this small, affluent city for most of his life. He remembers growing up hearing the same thing again and again. “‘You’re going to college, you’re going to college,’” he said. “It was unavoidable.” He looked across the kitchen table when he was 18 and told his father he really didn’t want to.

Mr. Parmenter, a sturdy man with a deep laugh, explained why. Shuffling his work boots, he recalled his aversion to studying in high school, how he would absorb just enough information to pass each class. He preferred being outside, even sweating his way through summer construction jobs. He bought a brand-new Eagle Talon, a low-slung sports car, with money he’d earned. He didn’t need a degree, he thought, to be self-sufficient.

But since then, Mr. Parmenter has learned that a degree is often necessary to advance. During the recession, when homebuilding and renovation jobs around Charlottesville dried up, his income dwindled. “At the end of the month, we had to pick and choose which bills to pay,” he said. “It was like, Do we want to keep the lights on?” Eager for steady work, he got a maintenance job at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s nearby home.

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After 18 months, he was promoted to superintendent. He was told, however, that he couldn’t move up to supervisor — a position that paid a lot more — without an associate degree. “I was like, I don’t know how a piece of paper hanging on a wall is going to help me at 4 o’clock in the morning when a four-inch pipe bursts,” he said. “I was stopped in my tracks right there because of higher education.”

Mr. Parmenter had little time to take classes. He was working 60 hours a week. Most nights he followed his two sons’ teams from ball field to ball field, cheering them on. Instead of going back to school, he found another maintenance job at a retirement home. Sighing, he said, “You just hit that point where —"

“Where you don’t want to miss your kids’ lives,” said Ms. Parmenter, curled up at the end of the sofa.

Soft-spoken and slight, she grew up in a trailer park not far from the university. Her father flipped burgers at the White Spot, a diner beloved by students, and her mother worked as a nursing aide. She disliked high school, she said, especially “the sittin’ still part.”

When she got pregnant with her older son, Tyler, at 16, she dropped out. She worked at a grocery store before taking a job in UVa’s financial-aid office. After earning a GED, she moved to a full-time position. But not long ago, she learned that she, too, couldn’t go any further without an associate degree. So she enrolled at Piedmont Virginia Community College last fall.

This semester, Ms. Parmenter, 36, is taking two courses that the university’s tuition assistance makes affordable. By December, she will have earned nearly a third of the credits she needs for a general-studies degree. It’s slow going, though.

She finds it hard to juggle studying and other responsibilities. On weekends she cleans houses for extra cash. She also spends a lot of time taking care of her mother, who has lung cancer. Next year she plans to take time off from school. “I want to learn, I want to make better money,” she said, “but it might take me a while.”

Generally, people who graduate from college expect their sons and daughters to do the same. Yet those who never enrolled often struggle to see how higher education’s benefits outweigh the costs.

After graduating from high school, the Parmenters’ son Tyler got a full-time job in UVa’s mail-services office. He bought a new car. “He wants to get an associate’s eventually, but it’s the money thing,” Ms. Parmenter said. Their other son, Thomas, 15, is an honors student who dutifully finishes his homework every night before playing video games.

The Parmenters don’t want to nudge either of them too hard. “I know how important college is, and I hope they will want to go,” Ms. Parmenter said. “But I guess just because I wasn’t pushed to do that, I’m not going to push them into something they don’t want to do.”

Eric Hoover writes about admissions trends, enrollment-management challenges, and the meaning of Animal House, among other issues. He’s on Twitter @erichoov, and his email address is eric.hoover@chronicle.com.

Correction (11/11/2016, 3:05 p.m.): This article originally misnamed a college. It is Piedmont Virginia Community College, not Piedmont Valley Community College. The article has been updated to reflect this correction.