Wide spread higher education, particularly equitable and open higher education, is a relatively new idea. Having a standard to which academically inspiring young people is an even newer idea. However, like all good ideas in human society, once the established practice of higher education had reached the minds and ears of most people of a population it spread like wild fire. Universities and colleges began to pop up and expand everywhere that there was enough funding for such an institution to the point where almost every moderately-sized town at least has a community college.

When the establishments first began though, the well-bred and well-born knew that they were nothing if their children did not receive a proper higher education at an acceptable institution. Those of lower social status in the past felt the need to achieve this education if it was afforded to them at all costs because they knew the worth it had in the world at large.

You are now joining the ranks of the higher educated individuals of the present and the past, becoming another unique patch in the large quilt of those who have given up time and effort to become further educated than a portion of their peers so that they may contribute greatly to academia and the world at large for years to come. That giant quilt has been growing upon itself for decades, centuries, and even eons before our modern higher institution system was in place because there have always been those who have the desire to learn more, to know more, and to think more than traditional and basic education allowed them.

You are now a part of that quilt, that large mosaic of different people from different times and different places, which covers not only our land but other nations around the world with knowledge and light. You are a piece of the fabric which holds human society together in its endeavors to progress the universal body of information and truth. You are now in league with the other professionals who gave up their own time, travail, and treasury to be as you are. This achievement of graduating with your particular degrees today puts you in a fellowship, a family of sorts, with the others who did as you and were not happy with the limits of their personal education nor pleased with the limited opportunities their basic training allotted them. You are now a member of the family of the higher educated.

Whether you use your degree to enter the professional realm or to continue your education to even greater heights, you are now respected and linked to others who possess higher degrees such as yourself. You have worked tirelessly to gain this honor and privilege. Therefore, enjoy it. Respect the others of your educated family as your own brothers and sisters, use your knowledge to encourage and help those who chose to not enter an institute of higher education, and enjoy the position in which your esteemed degree now places you.