“College has been
pretty normal. The
biggest change for
us was the size
of Bakersfield.
Frazier Park and
Taft are closely
knit places.
CSUB was the
first big campus
I was ever on.”

- Ben Schramm

Mara Schramm promised herself that she “would go back to school when my kids went to college.” That wasn’t unusual; a lot of people do that.

But Schramm, 53, who earned her bachelor’s degree from California State University, Bakersfield last year and her master’s degree in June, restarted her education quicker than most returning students. Both her children, Ben and Rebecca, went straight from eighth grade to college.

“My kids didn’t go to high school,” she said. “We lived in Frazier Park until last year when we moved to Bakersfield. My kids attended the little Gorman School. So when my son was in eighth grade he took the SAT, and scored at a level higher than most high school seniors. So he began college at 14 – an eighth grader who went straight to college. My daughter did the same thing.”

Both Ben and Rebecca attended Taft College, earning their associate of arts degrees, then transferred to CSUB. Ben graduated from CSUB when he was 18 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a management concentration, and a minor in communications.

Now Ben is working on his master’s degree – he and his mother are working on their culminating project together – while Rebecca, 18, is due to graduate from CSUB with her bachelor’s degree in communications in two or three more quarters.

By spring next year the family should have five degrees from CSUB between the three of them.

The family has been so engrossed in their educational pursuits that Ben just recently got his driver’s license. Mara said that he was never interested in learning to drive because he was learning so many other things. She finally insisted that he learn to drive because she was tired of being his chauffeur.

Maybe that’s because Mara has been driving herself on her own circuitous route to education. She completed her bachelor’s degree in studio art with a minor in communications in 2004. Then she and Ben chose to pursue a master’s degree in interdisciplinary studies, focusing on art, marketing and communications.

When her children decided to skip high school, it was only natural that they chose a small community college – Taft College – to begin their college career before transferring to CSUB.

Neither regrets their move. They don’t think they missed anything at high school.