Scott Walker: Criticism for lacking college degree ‘elitist’

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) hit back Tuesday at those suggesting his lack of a college degree disqualifies him from becoming president. 

“That’s kind of the elitist, government-knows-best, top-down approach to Washington we’ve heard for years,” Walker said in an interview on Fox News’s “The Kelly File.”

{mosads}”We’ve had an Ivy League-trained lawyer in the White House for the last six years who was pretty good at reading off a teleprompter but done a pretty lousy job leading this country,” he added.

Questions over Walker’s college education were stoked in part last week when The Washington Post reported that his decision to not graduate from Marquette University “has been a lingering mystery.”

“The issue is, how well educated is this guy?” former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” last week.

Dean said, should Walker become president, he would be the first “in many generations” to do so without a college degree.

Walker, who is moving toward a White House bid, brushed off the comments in his interview with Fox and touted himself as a battle-tested state executive.

“I’d rather have a fighter who’s proven he can take on the big-government special interests and win,” said Walker, who fended off a recall challenge two years into office and easily won reelection in November. 

“I think there’s a lot of Americans out there who scratch their head and say, we have people who helped found Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, plenty of other successful businesses, enterprises across this country, did exactly the same sort of thing I did — have an opportunity to start a career, have an opportunity to start a business, senior in college, went out and did it,” Walker said. 

He accused his political opponents of working themselves into a “tizzy” to think there’s more to his decision to leave college than wanting to take a job at the Red Cross.

He also noted that he and his wife are partially funding their two sons’ college educations.

“We value college for those who pursue that career, but in the end, you don’t have to have that to be successful, like many Americans have over the years,” he said. 

“I think people want to judge, what have you done lately?”