A True Life Van Wilder

Wisconsin Weekend Package

DOUG ERICKSON

Associated Press

WHITEWATER, Wis. - At the off-campus house Johnny Lechner shares with three other UW-Whitewater students, the stairway to his attic bedroom is lined with photos dating back to his freshman year.

Lechner has lost track of many of the buddies that posed with him at these long-ago fraternity parties and homecoming parades. They have moved on to new lives careers, wives, children, mortgages - and that's just not Lechner's scene.

"I could have should have graduated many years ago, but I keep passing on the real world's invitation," said Lechner, 28, who is in his 11th year as a student in the University of Wisconsin System, the last 10 at UW-Whitewater. He's taken a full course load every semester except the current one, in which he's taking seven credits.

Lechner has completed 234 college credits, about 100 more than needed to graduate and so many that he's now paying the so-called "slacker tax."

System students who exceed 165 total credit hours or 30 more than their degree programs require - whichever is higher - pay double tuition. The Board of Regents instituted the surcharge this school year as a none-too-subtle hint that a state-subsidized education has its limits.

The slacker tax doubles full-time tuition at UW-Whitewater (12-18 credits) to $4,816 a semester. With the surcharge, Lechner is paying $2,810 per semester for his seven-credit load.

It is a measure of Lechner's campus notoriety that many classmates call the slacker tax "The Johnny Lechner Rule." While he doesn't mind being known as "That guy who has been in college forever," Lechner declines to take credit for the regents' sweeping policy change.

"I doubt they'd do all that work just for me, but I believe I'm the most extreme example of a student who's continued to go to school," he said.

After graduating from Waukesha North High School in 1994, Lechner went to UW-Waukesha for a year, then transferred to the 10,000-student UW-Whitewater. Most of his friends were attending colleges in Milwaukee and Madison.

"I wanted to go to a school where I knew no one. I wanted to discover who I was."

Turns out he's someone who likes to sleep in, play basketball, write songs and party two or three nights a week.

"I've fallen into some sort of a comfort zone here," he said. "I think deep down inside I have a fear of getting into the next phase of my life."

His middle-class parents pitched in financially for the first two years. Now he owes $30,000 in student loans but otherwise pays as he goes, using money earned as a waiter at the Janesville Olive Garden.

The per-credit surcharge he's paying is a bitter pill, but he reasons that it's comparable to the tuition he'd pay out of state. His major has zigged and zagged over the years, with stops at health education, theater and communications. He even tried women's studies.

"I think they'll end up kind of balling it all together as a liberal studies major, with a lot of emphasis areas," he said. He hopes to one day work with troubled youth.

He has a B average over 11 years and recently made the dean's list with a 4.0 grade-point average for a semester. He has been involved in almost every campus activity possible, from founding the Men Against Sexual Assault and Violence group to winning the 2003 Big Man on Campus contest, a pageant-like event that includes a swimsuit competition.

He volunteers with numerous organizations, including Habitat for Humanity, the UW-Whitewater Prairie Restoration Project and Camp Getaway for inner-city Chicago children with AIDS.

Until a few weeks ago, he was planning to graduate this spring.

"Then I came up with this crazy idea. I wanted to be student body president."

Lechner is now campaigning on a platform of bringing a 24-hour restaurant to Whitewater. He has two opponents, Brain Wolfe and David Jackson. Students vote next Wednesday and Thursday.

Regardless of the outcome, Lechner said he'll be back for a 12th year. He's pretty sure it will be his last.

"You can imagine that my family has been waiting a long time for me to graduate."

Like many parents, John and Shelle Lechner always hoped their son would attend college. It didn't dawn on them that he might never stop.

"People talk about how it takes some kids five or six years to graduate. I should be so lucky," said John Lechner, an operations manager for an engineering firm.

Last year, a letter from UW-Whitewater intended for his son came to his Waukesha home, Lechner said. Because the two share a name, the older Lechner opened it. "It said. We have no more courses to offer you. You've taken everything you can take.'"

Lechner said he's proud that his son stuck it out in college and is paying his own way, but disappointed that it has taken so long. Perhaps his son doesn't want to make the same mistakes as his now-divorced parents, who married young and rushed headlong into adulthood, he said.

"He doesn't want to move on to a profession and real-world problems," Lechner said. "And as long as he's in school, the loans don't get called in. I think that has something to do with it."

Shelle Lechner of Pewaukee, a convenience store manager, said she likes that her son has used his college time to pursue his dreams, including a songwriting career. He has self-financed five acoustic-guitar CDs and performs widely.

"He's an adult. He's paying for college himself. I don't have a right to tell him to get a job," she said. "He's doing what he wants to do, and he's happy. I couldn't ask for a better kid."

Johnny Lechner successfully avoided advisers for most of his college career, and UW-Whitewater officials didn't push the issue. They're pushing it now.

Lechner's latest adviser, newly assigned to him this year, is Richard Brooks, a genial man who is nonetheless putting the hammer down.

"It's time," said Brooks, a 25-year staff member and chairman of the department of philosophy and religious studies. "Johnny has come to see that getting a degree and moving on is in his best interests."

Lechner's case is unusual in that he bucks the stereotype of the perpetual student who isn't very bright, Brooks said.

"If you look at his transcripts, he's really a very good student. He's actually taken some classes over again, even though he got a B."

Lechner, standing nearby during this interview, smiles and shrugs. "I didn't realize I'd taken them before."

One of them was speech. "Usually a class people hate," Lechner said.

He knows some people might look down on his decision not to grow up. Asked when his college career will cross the line from amusing to pathetic, he answers, "Probably three years ago."

Pressed as to why he's still in college, Lechner says, "It's the lifestyle. It's being laid back, going with the flow. If I had a better answer, I'd tell you."

Sophomore Jenny Zinda, 20, hangs out with Lechner and said she doesn't think of him as old. Zinda was in fourth grade when Lechner was a college freshman.

"Some girls say it's weird that he's still here, but the bottom line is they all want him," Zinda said. "Everyone knows him and there's a certain excitability about being friends with and dating Johnny Lechner."

Senior John Koskinen, 22, Lechner's best friend, estimates that eight out of 10 students know Lechner or have heard of him. Last year, Lechner even had a car in the homecoming parade with the sign, "Been in college for 10 years."

"He's one of those people in life who actually has the guts to do what makes him happy," Koskinen said. "He's one of the happiest people in the entire world, and if you reach that level of happiness, why not keep doing it?"