While commenting on the nation’s college admissions scandal, television personality Dr. Phil McGraw — of “Dr. Phil” fame — created a local scandal of his own by besmirching a Butler County university.

In an interview with People magazine, Dr. Phil discussed the ongoing admissions scandal, during which wealthy families made bribes in exchange for their children being accepted at prestigious universities.

During the course of the interview, McGraw made a foolish slight against Slippery Rock University.

“They want to say, ‘My kid’s going to Harvard, my kid’s going to USC or Yale,” McGraw said. “I think it’s bragging rights for them and they don’t want to be the one parent (who) says, ‘Well, yeah, my kid’s going to, like, Slippery Rock.’”

Not surprisingly, the SRU community didn’t take too kindly to Dr. Phil’s comment.

William Behre, the university’s president, wrote an open letter to McGraw that outlined the school’s advantages.

Outside of taking Dr. Phil to task for his rude comment, Behre made some good points about SRU being a great choice for any student. For one, it’s affordable. Behre pointed out that the cost for a student to attend SRU is less than they would have paid for McGraw’s 1957 Chevy Bel Air convertible.

Slippery Rock University provides a “key to social mobility” by making higher education affordable for those who might not normally have enough money to attend college, Behre argued. And SRU has earned its share of plaudits. Earlier this month, the school’s master’s degree in education was ranked as one of the top 50 online programs in the nation by TheBestSchools.org. The school was the only one on the list from Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education.

Dr. Phil has since apologized for his comment and noted that he did not even know SRU existed.

“It was definitely not aimed at the real Slippery Rock University,” said McGraw, who added that he went on to research SRU, and deemed it to be a “fine institution.” That’s all well and good, and we’re glad to see that Dr. Phil has admitted that his comment came from “ignorance, not intention.”

But even if he wasn’t specifically referring to the university, but rather the town itself, this incident still could have been avoided. It’s rarely a good idea to denigrate one school — or geographic area — to make another appear preferable.

Of course, most parents would be through the roof with pride if their child was accepted to an Ivy League school. But even so, our local county colleges also have much to offer. We hope that Dr. Phil takes up Behre’s invitation to visit SRU and see what the university is all about.