Never too late for a college education

The suggestion that 18-year-olds who choose to work in the oil fields instead of going to college right after high school are making a "risky decision ... that could foreclose on their future" is misguided [“In oil country, high-school grads opt to make money over education,” news, Dec. 25].

My experience as a college professor suggests that students who come to college after spending time in the workforce are more eager to learn and more conscientious than most students just out of high school. It's never too late to begin or resume a college education that may often be wasted on the young.

—Joyce Erickson, Seattle