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."
