90-year-old ISU student graduating this weekend
Idaho State University is hosting its spring commencement ceremonies this weekend. Among the 2,500 ISU students, someone special will cross the stage and officially receive a degree on Saturday.
“Well I’m a slow learner if it took me from 1947 to 2008 to earn my first degree,” Charles Cullen joked.
90-year-old Cullen first attended Idaho State in 1947 but said that the era of the GI Bill made recent high school graduates feel out of place on college campuses.
“For every high schooler, there was ten, ten returning veterans,” he said.
Cullen decided to put his education on hold, working various jobs and spending seven years with the National Guard before he retired.
When his wife passed away in 2004, he decided to go back to school and has spent the last 15 years on campus.
On Saturday, he’ll receive his bachelor of science in education.
“According to those that have been around for a long time, he’s probably or most likely, our oldest student that we’ve ever had,” Associate Vice President of marketing and communications, Stuart Summers, said.
The age differential is something Cullen has definitely taken note of.
“When they say, my parents told me about, I say, I was there.”
Cullen is eager to make his way across the stage and celebrate his achievements but doesn’t plan on this being his final time in a cap and gown.
“I think I wanna go back and get a masters for my 100th birthday,” Cullen said.
“If you don’t have a goal in life then you have nothing to wake up to? So this is my goal. I don’t have to make it, but I’ve got to try it. What else have I got to do?”
Cullen says he’s going to enjoy his “ego trip” and plans to be back on campus in the fall, taking classes to learn how to use what he calls a “foreign object,” a computer.
