Barack Obama's college days

The subject of this post is (probably) not important, so please don't pretend that I'm mounting an attack or making sinister insinuations. A blog may discuss a molehill as well as a mountain.

I've noted a couple of odd things about Barack Obama's college days in Los Angeles, as related in this piece in the the Confluence.

Obama spent his teen years in Hawaii, where he was, by all reports, not a standout as a high school student. In 1979, on full scholarship, he transfered to Occidental College, located in Eagle Rock, a suburb of Los Angeles, CA. Aside from playing basketball -- he was a top scorer -- he spent two years eating pizza, getting high, BS-ing with friends and putting off his assignments until the last moment. In short, he was typical.

Why Occidental? It is an admired and respected liberal arts college. But in the 1970s, most ambitious youths in Los Angeles considered Occidental a second choice school, after UCLA or USC. Surely institutions of comparable prestige exist on the Hawaiian islands...? I've seen no indication that he held a job during his college years. A school in Hawaii would have meant lower tuition, which would have left more scholarship money for living expenses.

In his book Dreams From My Father, he says that he went to Occidental “mainly because I’d met a girl from Brentwood while she was vacationing in Hawaii.”

Los Angeles is a massive place. The posh enclave of Brentwood -- within walking distance of UCLA -- is many miles away from Eagle Rock. If UCLA was impossible, Santa Monica Community College is close enough. UCLA was quite cheap for California residents back then -- around $275 a quarter. (It's a lot more now!) Out-of-state students paid a much higher tuition. I recall hearing that Occidental was also rather expensive. (My memory may be faulty on that point.)

After two years, Obama went to Columbia University, an Ivy League school in New York. An Oxy professor who wrote a recommendation for him later told a reporter only that Obama sometimes turned assignments in late.

I suspect that something is hidden in this resume -- not necessarily a dark and disturbing something, but something.

Obama may have received an athletic scholarship, which he may now consider an embarrassment. The scholarship may have reflected his race -- another fact he may now prefer not to discuss. He may have fudged his residency in order to receive an in-state tuition -- not an impossible thing to do if you have a relative or close friend living in your "target" area. He may have received more financial help from his grandparents than he now cares to discuss.

I'd also like to know how someone with a less-than-stellar academic record can finish up his undergrad career at Columbia. It is widely reported that Obama came under the wing of the fiercely anti-Russian Zbigniew Brzezinski at Columbia. At Occidental, he may have taken classes with a certain Professor of Politics who had been one of the CIA's chief experts on the Soviet Union. It is not unreasonable to suspect that this professor knew Brzezinski and recommended Obama.