 Good morning everybody Hi, welcome to Welcome to New America It's great to see a full house here today. My name is Kevin Kerry. I'm the vice president for Education policy here. I am delighted to be here to kick off the presentation of New America's third annual varying degrees Poll of public opinion about higher education We've got a lot of really great in-depth results that you'll hear in a few minutes and some great panelists who will come in and Discuss what they mean and how to think about them. So I will only say a few words We started this poll three years ago because there wasn't anything like it out there and I think the reason that no one had taken the time to explore public opinion In-depth around higher education is because we kind of knew what it was which was everyone thought it was fine Everyone felt great about American higher education for a long time There was a place for everyone and everyone in their place. It was affordable. It was an engine of opportunity It was a magnet to attract talent from around the world And our research universities were a driver of innovation in our economy And many of those things I think are still true to some extent, but it's clear now That the public is not entirely content with our higher education system And there are a lot of reasons for that And most of them are pretty familiar to those of us who live and breathe this stuff all the time With the benefit of hindsight and a little distance now It's very clear that the subject of price and particularly student debt has really become embedded in our culture in the way that particularly the newest generation of college students who Were beset by the combination of rising prices And a catastrophic labor market With lasting damaging effects now kind of understand themselves Their relationship with higher education and increasingly their kids relationship with higher education It's a it is a much more complicated and less universally positive set of ideas instead of feelings At the same time we also see I think Higher education being caught up in the overall growing Politization of our national dialogue We start to see bifurcation in the educational composition of people who identify With different political parties that didn't used to be there before and we see cultural issues Particularly around speech and freedom of expression being refracted through how we see our colleges in our universities And so for all of those reasons we dug deep in the survey and all of those questions And because we have an election coming up next year as you may be aware We really tried to focus on how people who identified with different political parties Understand and think about higher learning I will leave it to our presenters and our panelists to go in depth on the data But I will make kind of a couple of broad observations, which is The good news is that I think people remain as committed as they have been to the fundamental premise of higher learning As an engine of opportunity they believe and they know how important it is for people to go on after they finish high school And get a high-quality education of a variety of different kinds that lead to employment and citizenship That remains study. I think What is less study is their faith in the institutions and the policies that we have charged to provide that higher education While on the one hand people are broadly enthusiastic about spending more public money to make higher education better and More affordable they also definitely believe that these institutions should be held accountable In ways that frankly they are not held accountable now So I think those things and I think the results of this survey should embolden those of us who are Have an opportunity to weigh in on higher education policy There is room out there in the public opinion to make changes not incremental changes But real changes particularly as we head toward a New referendum on our national politics and potentially a once in a decade opportunity to reshape the way the federal government Structures the incentives that govern our higher education system So again, I'm delighted you're here. It's going to be a great conversation Just a couple of notes. I do want to thank the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their general generous financial support for this project And I also want to note one person who's not here today is my colleague Rachel Fishman Without whom this project would not be possible Fortunately, she's not here because she's home taking care of her brand new baby girl So a future college student So with that I'm going to turn it over to my colleague Alejandra Costa who is going to present the results of the survey And then around 10 o'clock. We'll start with our panel discussion. So Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. As Kevin said, my name is Alejandra Costa I'm a relatively new policy analyst here at New America on the higher ed team And I'm really excited to be presenting our findings with you all today So thank you Kevin for providing some context for this project and help us kind of frame The findings that we're about to go through today I will be sharing some of the survey top lines with you all There is a lot more to the survey than what we'll present here today, but we'll get to that a little bit later I was told this clicker was finicky and they were right Great. So before we get started with the findings I do want to talk a little bit about how we conducted this survey particularly because this year there were a lot of changes in In order to make varying degrees even better than the prior two years We've made some changes and the biggest one was working with a new partner And with with this new partner We were able to use an online platform to ask more questions That got us to more nuance more information and a greater diversity of Answers from our survey takers in prior years this survey was Conducted primarily through landlines and through mobile phones, but this year we have it online with some mobile phone usage as well With the online platform we asked a lot more questions than other years And as Kevin said, we also focus a lot on party identification because just in case you weren't aware there's an election next year This survey was conducted this past spring We had a total sample size of just over 2,000 adults 18 and over and we collected a Few over samples of some groups of Americans including African Americans Latineckis Americans Asian Americans and college students who we defined as those enrolled in an associate's or bachelor's degree program Our margin of error was about 3.35% I won't bore you more with the details of the survey. We'll get right to the juicy stuff So first I think the simplest but probably almost most impactful finding that we had from our survey is that Americans want Change in higher education only one in three Americans is satisfied with higher education the way it is now And two-thirds of our survey takers felt that they were not satisfied with education as it is now And so I think that implies a great desire for change and a great desire to See things done differently than how they are now And I think it also shows a great responsibility for those of us in the room who work in higher education to push for that change, too This finding was particularly interesting to our team because it came with quite a bit of nuance So here we see that Americans think that well-paying jobs may not require an education after high school So when this presented with the statement There are lots of well-paying stable jobs that people can find with only a high school diploma or GED About 62% agreed with this statement And so that was interesting because we're not quite sure what those jobs are I mean my career as a YouTube influencer hasn't really taken off yet But that is how the American people feel And this year we have about 37% of people who did not agree with the statement So Americans think that there are plenty of well-paying jobs that you can get without a high without any sort of education beyond high school But at the same time they feel that education beyond high school creates better opportunities So here we have over 90% of Americans agreeing that an education beyond high school offers pathways for upward economic mobility At the same time Americans 78% of Americans said that an education beyond high school offers a good return on investment for students So Americans feel that you don't necessarily need an education beyond high school to get a good paying job But they also feel very strongly very very strongly about how higher education can create better opportunities for people And on the hot topic of affordability Just under half of Americans think that an education after high school is affordable Only 40% of America 48% of Americans agree That they can get a high quality education after high school that is also affordable And this was also a bit nuanced or had a bit more depth There's a bit more depth to this finding as well because fewer than half Americans think that an education is affordable How do they think that this education should become more affordable? Well, they believe that government funding should be increased We have this year 83% of Americans believing that the federal government should spend more tax dollars on making opportunities after high school more affordable and 86% think that states should be spending more money to make education after high school more affordable This year we have only about 40% disagreeing with this with the federal government spending more tax dollars on making higher education more affordable and Only and again also only about 41% disagreeing with that statement for state funding so Americans do feel that They want these opportunities after high school to be more affordable And it seems like there is a lot of support and need for the federal and state government to be providing a lot of that funding according to American public opinion This report was pretty long We do have a lot more findings and we would like to be able to share more of those with you all but you can find You can find more of those results online and we will show you the link to that a little bit later But these are some of the findings that our team felt was were most most interesting That encompassed the the overall findings of the report and the overall sentiments of the American people So we hope that you find that interesting Take it with a grain of salt and also look more into our report to see all of the nuance all of the different findings And all of the sentiments that the folks that we work for Have about higher education in the United States So that's what I have for the presentation portion of Of our data and I want to get a little bit more interactive with you all There was a section in our report called Perception versus reality and in this section of our report We asked our survey takers to answer some questions about different facts and figures about higher education And then in our report we actually compared those to the real Facts figures and statistics So now we want to do that here with you all too We want to compare the perception in the room with the perception of Americans with the reality of Different facts and figures and we're gonna focus this part today on a student debt This will set us up nicely for the two panels that we have a little bit later So to get started a police take out your phone if you haven't already And you will text new America Ed to the phone number two two three three three And that will get us started into our poll First we will start with a test question just to make sure that this is working So our first question is are you ready to further explore varying degrees 2019 and you have two options You can either be excited or really excited So if you if your answer is absolutely, please send a in your text in the following text message And if you want us to please take you there right away Then you please you send B in your text message We get to see live how you all feel about further exploring varying degrees 2019. I'll give about Five more seconds. Cool. Thankfully everyone looks really excited about this There is no reality for this question the reality is that we're gonna continue on to our perception versus reality section So there is nothing to compare here, but just wanted to make sure that this works for you all I'm excited to Be a little bit more interactive with you all here So one of the questions we asked folks was which of the following items Do you think is the largest source of consumer debt? And we have the options of credit card debt mortgage slash home equity loan debt Auto loans or student loans? And so now we would like to ask you all what you think is the largest source of consumer debt So if you think it's credit card debt, please send a mortgages and home equity loans is B Auto loans is C and student loans is D All right, I don't see a lot more movement in the graph Oh Okay, I think we're done now So it looks like in this room the perception is that mortgages Mortgages and home equity loans are the largest source of consumer debt. This is what you all think here in this room Followed by that we have student loans 36 percent of you think that that's the largest source of consumer debt and Interestingly, nobody thinks that all auto loans is the largest source of consumer debt So that's the perception with this room now I want to compare it to the perception of those that took our survey the perception of Americans It's a little small But the perception of Americans is that student loans are the greatest source of consumer debt 47 percent of Americans thought that student loans are the largest source of consumer debt and that's followed by by credit card debt the second the Source of debt that Americans thought was the second or most popularly thought was the largest source of consumer debt was credit card debt and Then after that it was mortgages and home equity loans So most popular answer was student loan debt then credit card debt and then mortgage and home equity loans So that's very different from the perception is this in this room I'll blame it on all of you all being experts in higher ed and being very familiar with this type of data But this is the way that the rest of our of our country and the rest of our society thinks Things are at the moment. So Americans think that student loans are the greatest source of consumer debt But in reality those here in this room you all were correct Mortgage debt and home equity loans are actually the largest source source of Debt of consumer debt Followed by student debt. So student debt is in second place, but it is at a much much lower amount than home equity loan debt So it's pretty interesting to see that especially in the context of The loan of the student debt discourse that's going on right now, especially with the upcoming election So now on to our second question of Recent college graduates with a bachelor's degree who took out student loans. What do you estimate is the average student debt upon graduation? Do you feel that it's $10,000 or less between 10 and 20,000 between 20 and 30 Between 30 and 40 or more than $40,000. I feel like you all cheated. Did you look at the report before? So it looks pretty clearly that in this room. We believe that the average student debt is between 20 and $30,000. I Won't wait too much more for the little adjustments but I do want to share that Americans believe that the average student loan debt is more than $40,000. That was the most popular answer in our survey and Almost 70% of people believe that the average student debt was over $30,000 So if you can see on the far end on the far end of our graph That's the those are the most popular answers and that was between 30 and 40 and 40 and over So over 70% of Americans believe that the average student debt is over $30,000 But in reality the average student debt is just under 30 at 28,650 dollars and that's for both public and private nonprofit institutions in 2019 So Americans thought that the average was a bit higher Again, there's a lot of things that we can attribute to that. I'm gonna blame you all for being experts on this topic for getting it Right, that was no fun But that is essentially our two Most interesting findings regarding debt Regarding how Americans perceive debt for higher education in the United States and the reality of it So I think as Kevin shared there's a lot of work to do for us a lot of educating and a lot of helping people understand The reality of education after high school in the United States So good job. You basically got the answers right With that, I hope you enjoyed some of our top findings You can explore our data more at newamerica.org Slash varying hyphen degrees and there you can play a lot with our data and see more of our findings there yourselves So, thank you so much with that. I'm gonna pass things over to my colleague Sophie Who is the varying degrees queen while Rachel is out on maternity leave. Thank you so much Thank you, LA. I'm not the queen, but it's okay. I take that So thanks everyone for coming and now why we're in the mood of exploring more data Let me take a little bit of your time to introduce you guys to a tool that we just Public this summer prior with prior to varying degrees Which is the higher the higher pulling dashboard this tool is technically an online repository of publicly available Survey data on higher education that has been conducted since 2010 and on this tool you will find Surveys on higher that touch on various issues such as values funding teaching and learning we have it all and Not just like listing you on the surveys that out there we like when you Go and like click on the plus side on each of the survey you will see tough findings of the surveys And you can also download the surveys we make it easier for you to Search the surveys via this filter panel and you can do it by example size to demographics or just by the main team of the survey so I Think this would we would update the surveys Periodically, so if you are interested in survey data in higher education If you are someone who has to refer to survey data a lot, I think this tool will come in handy and That's it for our presenting today's he comes the most awaited sections of this morning events our panels and I'm gonna introduce the first panel Which includes three amazing researchers who are familiar with the issues of higher higher at finance and demand the panel would be Moderated by Diane Harris who is the editor at Lash at Newsweek and Without photo, I want to invite your first panel to come and kick off the conversation Well, good morning everyone. I am delighted to be here. I'm Diane Harris. I am as Sophie said I'm an editor at large at Newsweek and But spent the majority of my career at Money Magazine where I was the editor-in-chief The first and only woman to be editor-in-chief if that matters So I am I'm really delighted to be here I've been Covering and by covering mostly editing and directing coverage of higher education for for a couple of Decades and it's such an important topic as The varying degrees as you saw from from the results There are so many misconceptions That are highlighted by the varying degrees survey and by a lot of other work that's out there And it's astonishing given what a hot topic Student debt is in our country today and with the election coming up that there are so many things that are misunderstood a About the student debt situation. I wrote about them recently in a cover story for Newsweek Which we have a few copies out there And it echoes a lot of the findings that you will see if you dig deep into the data of the varying degrees survey But for me, it's also and I suspect for many of you and for a panelist It's a personal issue. You know as a student myself a Little while ago, you know, I I certainly grappled with student debt and more recently as a parent and Watching my children Grappled with student debt issues. So for me as I suspect for a panelist and for many of you It's personal as well as professional and It's why I am so honored to be here with this distinguished group of panelists Who are doing really really important and insightful research in the field And so without further ado, let me introduce them We will be talking for about half an hour and Then we'll open it up to you for questions for about 15 minutes, which is a nice Period of time for Q&A. So I hope you will Be robust with your questions Then about Abo is sitting right here Is an assistant professor of money relationships and equality in the school of human ecology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison Her research examines the causes and consequences of debt and wealth inequality with a focus on higher education and family and relationships in Particular autos work on racial disparities and student debt Sheds light on the ways that societal inequalities stem from historical legacies of racial exclusion and discrimination And are reproduced over time for the current academic year She is a visiting professor at the Stanford School of Public Policy at Duke University Sitting next to Fanava is Dominique Baker is an assistant professor of education policy at Southern Methodist University Her research focuses on the ways that policy shapes the access and Success of students who are underrepresented in higher education Her recent areas of study include the causal impact of undergraduate debt on credit accumulation Early career earnings and graduate school enrollment In addition to her work at SMU Baker is also currently a researcher with the Texas on-course research network where she Focuses on factors that influence the debt burden of Texas graduates and Next to Dominique is Sarah Saddlemeyer who manages Pugh's success borrower who manages Pugh's student borrower Success project which promotes successful repayment of student loans Especially among borrowers at greatest risk for delinquency and default through research and advocacy Previously she served on Pugh's financial security and mobility project and its economic mobility project encouraging debate on how to improve opportunity in America Before joining Pugh Saddlemeyer was also a fellow at the US Department of Health and Human Services and has also worked for the Kaiser Family Foundation the Urban Institute the California Department of Health Care Services and the US Department of Veteran Affairs You do not look old enough That long long resume Please join me in welcoming our distinguished panel. I'm really Over the past week or so and it's and it's and it's really important important work Okay, so let me just start off by asking you Politicians and pundits and I admit it the media Had talks a lot about student debt with the word crisis attached it's always the student debt crisis the student debt crisis and in Reporting the Newsweek story almost all of the experts that I talked to objected to that word So let me just start by asking you is that the right way to characterize What is happening with student debt in America right now? That's a great question Whoa, okay, so usually when I talk about this topic I start out by showing some of the facts and figures around Average debt and then talk about how there is this misperception about how much people have Or the average borrower has Largely because there's a smaller proportion of people at the higher end of the distribution that have carry a lot of the debt So like over a hundred thousand dollars And so that's kind of bringing up the averages and kind of skewing the public perception about what is going on However, I'll still a little bit from my own research that I don't think it's a miscarbonization to say that it is a crisis Because if we look at specific populations or specific demographic groups, they they are who are disproportionately burdened with student debt and they're and they're having troubles not only what we see as an accumulation of the debt and in the repayment part of How it may be affecting long-term and have long-term implications then I think Especially we look at particular populations that we can get into right a little bit later So so so I have to tell you that you know you talk about the questions somewhat in advance and I didn't prepare them for this question But we are gonna get to Throw them a little curveball right right at the start But we're we're gonna go right from this into specific misperceptions, but dominate. What do you think? Yeah, so I am one that generally does not Use the terminology of crisis, but I am normally very specific that I think When it comes to in particular black students that there is a crisis within the student loan Which is a little bit of what we're sort of alluding to here So generally speaking For a number of people they Borrow to achieve Some amount of higher education They achieve that amount of higher education. They are able to repay their student loans and they benefit from that opportunity That is a non negligible part of the student loan borrowers in the United States And so I think it's always important to try to think about the balance How many students are struggling versus students who are not struggling and I do think that where we see students that are Struggling regardless of whether they earn a credential or not are for black students Yeah, a little bit of what Dominique said, which is that student loans are a good news story and a bad news story So 43 million give or take Students currently are borrowers currently holds that Comes to about 1.4 trillion dollars and that 1.4 trillion dollars can be misleading certainly the cost of college has been rising Certainly people are taking out more debt We see that in the data But that also indicates that more people are going to college and this can be largely women and communities of color So I think that is a good news story The bad news story is that about 20% of those with that are in default And so I like to think of it as a student loan repayment crisis So repayment system that we have today is incredibly complex It's outdated and it can be cumbersome and really impact the way people are able to repay their loans Thank you I'm still not sure whether to use the word crisis or not I mean what my my conclusion was sort of what you are alluding to which is that there is a crisis for certain groups But to characterize all of student borrowing for college as in crisis mischaracterizes the situation so That's sort of where where I landed Now I'd like to talk about some of those specific misconceptions and also Also, maybe things that are not well understood because that's different than a misperception So either one what we're trying to do is Give people a more accurate Portrait of what's going on with student borrowing Both in the accumulation part of it and in the repayment part of it. So can I start with you? But based on your research Talk to me talk to us about what the critical misperceptions are So I think I mean we kind of alluded to it in the first in the first question And it's what I think largely stems from the work that I've done around racial disparities in student debt And it's connections to wealth inequality is that it's what should I say racial disparities are deeply rooted in wealth inequality and so What I would say is that We see families across the board taking on a Huge financial risk in order to go to college There's no there's a risk with pursuing higher education across the board, right? But increasingly we see of An increase in the financial risk that black families are taking on in order to send their children to college Not only the children and the students having to bear our large financial burden, but their families as well Who are taking on additional? Loans you can for example the parent-plus loan is one example. So I think I and I alluded to it in the first response that we see this not just I agree with that Sarah with regards to repayment, but also in the accumulation piece, right? College costs have gotten so out of control We're so high that families and students included in that are taking have a greater financial risk And if we don't see them completing the degree or even I'll say Added to this misconception is that for black families There's actually evidence that even if you have the degree you have a higher higher risk of default, right? So, you know, it's not just this just get the degree. It's like we're getting the degree We're doing all the things correctly, but we still have this financial burden or these these borrowers of color of color in particular black students black borrowers have this financial risk higher financial risk associated with pursuing higher education and that the payoff is Not as great, right? Especially I mean, yes, so I'm looking for my lens of the consumer consumer science lens But we see that this can happen lasting short and long-term lasting impacts on transitions into Partnership, you know, whatever market you're thinking about credit if you're if you're defaulting How does that hinge on your credit report have future borrowing more expensive? So just thinking about what these these this means for these borrowers in the in the short and long Some so my two are normally that number one When we think about who borrows and then try to think about what is sort of stable repayment We sort of talk right about whether or not some of his entered default And so one of the number one things that I always make sure that I talk to people about is the fact that The people that are most likely to default are individuals who have actually very low amounts of student loan debt burden, right? Most people in here are nodding. That's awesome. I'll still say it again Because right we create an idea where we think that it is Particularly talk about perceptions that it is individuals who have 45,000 50,000 100,000 200,000 dollars worth of debt That are the ones that we see the most default, but we always want to keep in mind I don't Sorry, we're miked and if you've ever been a woman who's or just anyone who's worn a dress and try to be miked It's a whole thing So we just got words So it's incredibly important that we think about the fact that often individuals who do not complete a credential Who then also have lower amounts of student loans that they've accumulated are often not seeing the benefit of that credential But still have the debt burden to show for it. And so it can be really difficult to manage those repayments So that's my number one and then my number two It's a little bit of what we've talked about here when we talk about the ability to repay We're not just talking about colleges and universities roles and responsibilities We're not just talking about students roles and responsibilities. We're also talking about the labor market Which some people may think that colleges universities have more or less control over But there is a reality that for certain students there is discrimination within the labor market as well Which can make it more challenging to feasibly manage or the repayment process for their debt That is a part of the story for borrowers of color in particular black borrowers Where there are pieces that come with the salaries that those students have that can make it more challenging for them to repay This is when we can then sort of get into this discussion about a repayment crisis and what that might look like When we're trying to think about is there's some sort of income-based or contingent way that we could try to help these students or things of that nature There before you answer I just want to underscore a couple things that that you said because I don't think it can You know, obviously, there are a lot of people who are very knowledgeable in this room as we saw from the interactive portion of this But this is going out, you know, we're live streaming and we're sending messages to a larger audience and it can't be underscored enough I think that that in general it is the smallest the the people with the smallest loans who are at greatest risk and also just Contingent with that is that how rare and you would not notice from especially the political Rhetoric right now how rare it is for For larger for those kinds of large loans mean $100,000 and up borrowers are rare and they're mostly graduate students or perhaps parents But they are for the most part not Undergraduates and there are not many of them. They disproportionately Contribute to that one point six trillion dollar figure in student debt So they're not unimportant but in actual numbers They're small and I just think that that's a related point that we you know sort of want to address Oh, no, I think I think that's huge and in fact one of my favorite figures that Sarah and I actually Have talked about before is this one that comes from the College Board that looks at trends in student loan borrowing and what it shows is a breakdown of The amount of sort of outstanding loans that we have the United States It breaks it down by I wish like see this is why when you don't let an academic have a PowerPoint Right like I just want I just want to So it breaks it down by how much a student has accumulated in outstanding debt And it says what what is the share how many borrowers have this amount? And what you can see is that? Overwhelmingly most individuals have very small when we're considering An entire college education That generally we're talking about less than twenty thousand dollars And that we see that there are some individuals who have the overwhelming lion's share of outstanding debt But those are individuals who have gone to graduate or professional school and have amassed several degrees in order to get that debt or Have attended for profit institution I'll just underscore what Fennaba and Dominique said before and add to that two things first that student loans aren't they may be the first form of debt that a Traditional or someone right out of high school college student has but they're not the only debt and the only thing that families are worried about on their balance sheet So we had we conducted a series of focus groups earlier this year across the country and I would say a majority of what we heard when we asked about people's struggles was not specifically about This is definitely something that contributes to financial and security But that families have a lot on their plate and when they sit down at the kitchen table and really talk about their finances They're not living. They are living one financial life, right? They're thinking about Per the data we saw earlier. They're thinking about their mortgages or their rent They're thinking about their car payment putting food on the table daycare things like that The second is that not everyone has the same types of experiences when they're in work So we have since you guys talked about data. I'm gonna also talk about data We sort of have these snapshots in time 9 million people are in default at you know, millions of people are And deferment or forbearance or the link went on their loans, but it really matters And I think we don't think enough about how people get there Does it matter is it it's sort of a different set of solutions and a different Mechanism to repayment for someone to be in forbearance or to be in deferment for extended periods of time Then for someone to just use the forbearance here or there if your car breaks down Relay to make ends meet every now and then from month to month So in order to target resources and policy and discussions toward those who are struggling most you really need to understand What are the individual experiences that people are having what are the pathways they're taking and how does that impact their Eventual outcomes where are their points along their way where there might be places where we could inject resources Or really catch people before they get too far along What are and I'll throw this out to you know, whoever whoever wants to answer in whatever order What are some of the consequences of? these misperceptions You know for me It seems to me that a lot of the debate we're hearing from the political candidates Might not be focused On the things that the researchers that at least I spoke to Seem to feel was the most urgent and I don't know how you get to effective solutions as a result So that that's sort of what drove me to do the story. Can can you guys address that? I'll start off by saying that I think taking a broad view if we have these misperceptions about where It misdirects where our focus is and where we can make Policy relevant interventions, right? So if we are looking at the wrong place, then we can't Create the policies needed to properly address where the issue And and and therefore Hope the most the largest amount of people right? That's ultimately what we want to do You can come back to me Sure So yes, I agree that we are definitely at risk of targeting Resources in the wrong place. I'll back up just a second and say I think something that we're not talking about is that there's actually Two distinct yet interrelated problems here There's the issues of access cost completion on the front end So while someone's in school pathways to school and then there are also these Repayment issues on the back end so whether or not someone can get into the right repayment plan Sort of how their earnings are directly related to their ability to repay and these are certainly Related but in the policy discussion, we often talk about them as their one sort of giant problem I think a big risk there is that we're trying to create a one size fits all policy that isn't addressing You know if if something happens on the front end We sort of need to address that and it does have impacts on the back end But that might not be solving all the problems But I was gonna say I'm gonna say also if we have this perception that people are taking on a lot of debt Or they're carrying around this debt then we personalize the issue and say well, you know, it turns into a This person made poor choices, right? And we and that takes the onus off of us as a society to really think about what is broken in the system that led to The larger number of people who are down at the bottom. Yeah, we have to Focus on the entire distribution But what's going on with these people who have less than $20,000 worth of debt and can't make their payments, right? Instead of and and we can and what's happening is we're applying these personalized Explanations to these people when it may not it's not a personal issue or it's not a personal responsibility issue It's a system system system issue wide issue. So that's No, I think my distinguished colleagues have have nailed that I would say broadly one of the things that I always think about is a lot of what Sarah said around the idea that if we focus on That we have to really careful about how we target interventions in particular if we focus all of our time and energy so When I have my students try to do sort of an experiment and I say okay, I want you to tell me how you're gonna fix Student loans with a single policy Give it to me. I'm gonna give you a whole 30 minutes to think about it And and what they normally come to at the end of the experiment is they sort of say well It's hard because if I even if I said that I was going to sort of Forgive this debt or I was going to make all of this free One of the things we couldn't then control is what happens if universities decide that they're going to charge more And so then it creates a different type of scenario So so it is incredibly challenging to think of sort of a single one-stop solution that creates an environment where we have affordable higher education That we feel reaches an optimal level of individuals pursuing and achieving post-secondary credentials So I think it's incredibly important that we think about the fact that this is a sort of big Interconnected problem that means that we have to think about multiple targeted solutions and the way we talk about that problem The way we talk about that Impacts the decisions that people are making about borrowing can make people hesitant to borrow even if that's a way that they're gonna access College, but it could also impact completion You know, I do not give consumer advice So this should not be construed as such but one could make the argument that someone who is has one more semester It might be better off taking debt to finish than dropping out, right? So thinking about when that makes sense when it doesn't make sense But also sort of what happens in the before and after and actually this is perfect because if you read Like beautiful write-ups of recent research Then you can check out one of Sue Dinarski's latest pieces in the New York Times that covers two different pieces of research that look and actually show that When you have access to when you have access to ways to afford college whether that is through potentially student debt That it can help people to complete to take more credential to take more credit So it is important that we think about what is an appropriate and affordable amount Not all student debt is bad in the same way that not all debt is bad That's that's why we saw right like so many people have mortgages and home loans, right? Because that's how they could afford a home Yeah, and that was one of the things that racial fishmen I if you're watching Rachel congratulations on the baby said to me in For the story was that she worried and saw in some of the focus groups that New America Conducted as part of this research that she saw a real shift in people thinking that just all student debt was bad and Should be avoided at all costs and that and that Not seeing it as the pathway to some people's ability to get a college degree and and really worried about that one of the other things that I saw is that in everyone that I talked to felt addressing challenges with repayment is a really really big and important part of Finding effective solutions to the problems that that people have with student loans And yet a lot of the public discourse is on accumulation in people with big With big debt and blanket forgiveness So Sarah for this I want to start with you and Move us to talking about effective solutions you recently did an opinion piece which you talked about a Repayment solution and pretty simple fix can you talk about what that is what issue it would address and how it would help sure So there's some debate in the field about whether income-driven repayment is the best choice for anyone But I don't think there's much debate about it being a good choice for struggling borrowers But it is actually if you are laying out all of the options before a struggling borrower This is the hardest thing to do if you don't actually need a degree in behavioral economics Understand that that makes no sense right this thing that we really want people to do or that might be the best for their financial Security is actually the thing that's the most difficult to do and so there's there is a fix That can happen right now We don't have to wait for a major policy reform to happen There's sort of a smaller thing and they would have a really big impact And that is Congress directing the IRS to share relevant borrower data with the Department of Education So right now when you apply for an income-driven plan you have to submit paperwork It can be onerous you have to submit your income you said you know you're on the phone You have to go fill out forms you have to mail them in we heard in our focus groups So this is a reason that people are struggling to repay they're struggling to get into these plans They're struggling to stay in the plan and they're really struggling to sort of Remember and also to be able to effectively return this information and much of that information the US government already has and So allowing this data sharing would reduce one barrier that exists right now And to me it's sort of the first step on the holy grail of fixing the student loan repayment system Let's reduce the bar a barrier that borrower states Let's allow those who need it most more easily access these plans and again It's simple and it's something that we can do right now Let me move it to the also to the two of you. Let's let's shift in and Based on your research and just based on your being a knowledgeable expert in this field What What do you think are the most, you know would be the most effective solution or what would you most like to see happen and And how does it contrast with what is what suggestions are out there? too big too broad Just Sure, so I Will not say that this is the most effective. I will say that this is a potential I'm going to caveat the mess out of this that this is a potential solution That if we're if we're thinking on the front end one of the things there did such a lovely job talking about some things in the back end Particularly When I try to think around what we've said around the low amounts That are tied to the low amounts of student loan debt that are tied to our highest number of defaults and then in particular the Disproportionate reliance on debt for students of color in particular black students I Wonder whether or not a sort of state federal matching grant program That would put more money into institutions We have some very strong research that talks about the fact that putting money towards Resources around academic instruction and learning Are some of the most effective ways to help with increasing our completion rate the colleges and universities? And so there are some proposals from people like Dave dimming That talk about what if we created a matching grant and said that this money could only be spent on increasing sort of the instructional resources within institutions that would Help students that are at that sort of Low cumulative debt amounts with actually completing. So hopefully they are actually going to benefit from their degree I would add a twist that I would think that we could add additional funds to minority serving institutions And by doing that potentially target the communities of color that don't necessarily have the same amount of wealth as their peers Which then makes them rely more on student debt So Awesome, I guess similar just the echo kind of what Sarah said we have a program out here We have income based repayment. I think expanding it and thinking of ways that it can reach more More of the more of the borrowers in repayment is is absolutely necessary I'm also going to say I'm for it loan forgiveness. I think we need to think about what got us into this Into this place with so many borrowers I'm struggling and with such amount of debt if we go back just a couple generations We did offer higher ed at a lower cost to people and then you know through a series of changes in our tax and higher ed policies We've burdened a whole new younger cohort of Young adults with with something that was did not exist a couple generations ago and so really thinking about how do we What What are we setting up our young adult our Current generation of scholars. How do we want to see them? How do we want them to be productive in this society? And if we think that this may be something that what we believe is hindering Progress whatever growth in our society then I think we need to think bold and and and remove it I think you know there's the example of What happened at Morehouse with the the billionaire donor giving a grant for the graduating class Removing creating a grant to remove the student debt of all that and you know that can be transformative in their lives To have not to have that But that's one class right what happened through the classes before them or the classes that come after right and should Relying that we can go down should we relying on private donations to solve this issue? I don't think that's that's the case But what what it really implies is that this is an important issue that people think that if we if but for this debt They they may have a different pathway, right? They may be making different decisions and so what if it was removed so I go I go big long-forgiveness You know we we've talked some about how in I think student debt is a racial issue and and a lot of your research, you know and the research out there Makes that very very clear and maybe we need to say that just that clearly but it's also a women's issue and And that was that was another thing that was surprised I don't know if it was surprising to me in the research actually actually probably wasn't but When the story about Morehouse came out, you know that is that was an extraordinary gesture But it was not surprising to me that it was an all-male school like and And I thought a lot about that. I mean just do you dress the gender issue at all and in any of your research? I know a aw did Yeah, and so I have a couple of pieces one that is looks at black women and looks at them sort of in the repayment process to talk to them and Then some work that I've done in Texas looking at debt burdens for about five cohorts of graduates in the state of Texas and looked at that from both a racial and a gendered perspective and What's interesting is that For women broadly one of the sort of biggest areas that I have found that sort of drives the variation in what their debt burden is Is labor market differences? Which we generally refer to as labor market discrimination So so that's one of the major pieces when it comes to women and being able to manage their debt I think we also have very good research on sort of the the high social value low pay Careers occupations that more often than not women are the ones that work in which is going to create that type of potential imbalance So yeah, I think I think gender is a part of this I think there's sort of a reality that our public policy systems work within our larger society So that means that our public policy systems mirror the larger ills within our society sexism racism all those sorts of pieces So we have to be very intentional and think about those when we're trying to develop public policy in order to try to combat that And again, you know anybody jump in with this have any advice to students and parents either based on your research or what you see out there on navigating Student debt and this and the current environment that we're in we'd all love to see big bold solutions But while we're waiting Any advice? Yeah, I mean I think one of the Biggest things that I try to think about really carefully and this is this is a real thing like even You know with all the research and things like that like I wind up hanging out with some of my sorority sisters And they have children and they're like, but what am I supposed to do to pay for these kids college? And I'm like, oh, I'm sorry. Oh, you took me for the different kind of expert. I don't um This happened like on Saturday. So so trying to think through This is really challenging right one of the things that I try to talk to people about is sort of a balance both that I think that There are a lot of amazing institutions that often people Sort of glance over when they're talking about what higher education is we talk about we often not everyone But we often in our minds think of very specific Institutions when we think about college and universities in the United States when there are a lot of great other types like I think that Regional public institutions are some of the unsung heroes of the United States And I think that there are ways That it is okay. So so one of my biggest things actually is the idea that like The ideas of what is a quality education are often filtered through a societal idea of what prestige is And and that if at all possible I think it's really important to try to think about what does a quality education mean for your child and if that means You know dedicated professors who care if that means The potential for like an affordable education that there are ways that that can potentially happen at institutions That you might not have automatically thought of when you were thinking of colleges and universities that by no means solves Any problems, but it is a thing that I think is important that sometimes gets overlooked Brookings or somewhere to the research that the some of these institutions are talking about are really the economic mobility Generators, I don't know. It'll come to me. Who did the research? and that is that is a Complete like I attended my state flagship. I love my alma mater But I do think that there are things that regional public institutions are doing that serve their communities both local and their state that matter and that often can provide more resources or opportunities and That there are these types of institutions that can also meet full need for students That provide wonderful opportunities that we don't often talk about my advice I used to say again, I'm not an expert and give it advice but Make sure that if you do decide to send your child or you decide to go Take on as least amount of loans as possible So that may be talking with the university figuring out if you can if there are any scholarships grants that you may be eligible for Kind of being a little bit more proactive rather than if you can be if you can be and And then getting in and finishing as fast as possible And being I'm very direct about you know trying not to linger on if you have to go through the process Now I just add a little bit more to that and say just make sure you understand what you are take what kind of loans you are taking on so you know understanding the difference between the private versus public or federal loans because it's really you know, there is different Criteria is a different different like interest rates and different protections around the types of loans that you take on so And in particular when you're in this repayment phase, and if you run into difficulties how the federal government can help you with your loans versus a private institution and who's willing to assist you Did each of you did you have to borrow for for school? And I'm thinking about this in your bio and this is what inspired this question So you should definitely take it first You know have you borrowed how recently did you pay it off? How did you feel about it and how did that experience if at all impact the the work that you do inform your research? So I wrote in my bio that I just recently paid off my loans in June 17 years after finishing six six years deferred for graduate school and With an NIH loan repayment grant so with assistance from NIH. Okay now again. I've also fallen to a different pool because I have graduate. I mean whatever but So yeah, I mean, but I think that this is I may be a little unique but not uncommon amongst My peers who also finished or some who are still repaying on our loans. I went to a private institution And also my mother took on some loans for for for for me as well Which she is also still paying on because my sister also I have a sister who also attended a public Public institution, so it's very real. This is very much embedded in in my reality and when I talk about this It's both from research, but as of also a personal perspective I I hear I know I ask people the stories when I actually when I teach and when I go on and talk about the work that I do I tell my Especially graduate students are looking for ideas about what study and the research I said one sometimes when you don't get the validation within the Academia about what your questions or what you want to pursue It's when you go back into the community and you talk to them and that's where you get your validation That's where you get some of your ideas and that's how you know what you're doing is going to actually touch and is important And so that's this is actually what happened a little bit to me this talking and understanding what was happening amongst My cohort and the course that were coming behind behind us with regard to student debt And received a scholarship to my state flagship institution But my parents took out loans to pay for my room and board my books all of that In addition to that Though because we are in a special place because we did a couple extra degrees But but but I will say that I I 100% Recognize and this is one of the reasons why I think a lot about the debt accumulation side of things is that While I expected to help my parents pay back that loan that they took out I was very fortunate that I didn't have to take out any loans in my name to go to college That's an incredibly fortunate space to be in and I have to think that that in part Made me feel more comfortable to work for an AmeriCorps program after I graduated It made me feel more comfortable to work for my alma mater In a student affairs position with anyone who has worked in a student affairs position knows Not having debt was helpful for that So so right like it it it it fundamentally helped me to shape my decisions It made my decision when I was trying to decide where to go for my master's degree I went where I could work part-time and go to school part-time so that it would be easier for me to finance that So I I think a lot of my personal experiences Influence how I would like other people to be able to make decisions based on their interests and If they want to contribute and give back to society the ways that they could do that without having to feel There's this burden that's sort of hanging over them So I also have that which I very recently also just finished paying off I'll this is like so much affirmation. I love it And so I always joke with my co-workers that now that I pay my debt off Maybe I should move into a different issue area But in all seriousness, I think something that I really value is continuing to bring borrower voices to the fore and using both Quantitative and qualitative research. That's why I think the varying degrees survey is so incredibly important The perception versus reality the focus groups that New America did We also as I mentioned just wrap them up But really marrying those so that you can understand for what what's happening But also how people feel about it because that is really what drive Whether or not they take up the good policies that we put in place Yeah, I mean I have to say that that obviously I went to college and graduate school in a different era And and living proof that that really was a different era because it was far more manageable to me. I mean like Just like the trends today, I took out I needed to take out a larger loan for graduate school than I did as an undergraduate, but we were poor and so I got a lot of scholarship aid. I had Pell grants, you know It was it was much easier for me to navigate my undergraduate career that made it easier as graduate students but as a parent Observing my my children wanted to go to graduate school and the amount of debt they'd taken on and Trying to pay for them so that they didn't have debt as undergraduates. It's just An astonishing difference and in terms of repayments sitting with my daughter and trying to Help her navigate the various Income-based repayment programs and I think I was the editor-in-chief of money magazine Like if you don't have a mom or a dad or are not you're so like how do how do people do it? And so I feel very you know All of these solutions seem really great, but that in particular Resonated with my personal experience. So at this point I will stop and I want to throw it open to questions to everyone but before we do that I just want to say It was my great pleasure to be able to read all of not read all of your work to read samples of your work and And And you're making an extraordinary contribution to this space. So thank you and now questions questions for a panel Thank you for your work in Explaining and framing the whole issue of student loans and and financing College and I was wondering have you done any work on financial literacy programs and up front in educating students and parents on What options they have and and how to pay for college So actually in some of an hour some of our research we control for whether or not The financial literacy of the of the young adults and find that it doesn't really have much We don't find any association with that accumulation That's not to say that it's not Necessarily going to be helpful because I think financial education is is important and it speaks to what I said my last comment around Understanding the types of loans that you're taking on because it's very gonna have very long-term implications later on in the repayment piece but I also Sometimes hesitate with regards to financial education because it shifts the conversation back to the to the individual rather than thinking how we can think about how us as a society can Help to fix this this issue and and and I think that's where we need to be focused Not necessarily on individuals because it's not going to it's just gonna persist if we if we continue to say well this person got financial education and rather than fixing rhythm Where where they were yes, they made this choice and therefore It's your it's your issue to deal with now rather than thinking about the systemic issues that are existing in the problem So that's usually what I say We also heard in the focus groups we did that if people are receiving financial literacy at school or through exit counseling Sometimes they're not Experiencing troubles and repayment and tell ten years down the line Maybe when they lose a job or they have a kid or you know some mitigating until they're not mitigating life circumstances But some financial shock comes along And so the ability to have some just-in-time information to either you know through their servicer through the Department of Ed through their school We heard was incredibly important and could be transformative a lot of schools now who have a requirements like before you graduate You have to take a class so there are these like you know a little quick fixes that people can implement But it's not we still have an issue right as Sarah alluded to After so it's like oh, we've done this check it off So it's kind of puts the issues back on the individual We always have to be careful because it can also work in the reverse so that article I mentioned That Sudanersky wrote up in the Times one of the pieces that it notes is that if we sort of nudge students to Think about how much debt they're taking out But we don't necessarily fully educate them about the opportunities that it's providing them Students may choose to take less debt out and then drop out And so we also have to think about what is within the content when we say sort of that we're educating individuals about their finances Because we can sometimes push them towards the decision that we may not think is actually helpful and they may not ten years down the line and even with You know, we know this from not just Related to student debt, but financial literacy in general that even when people Get education that that is not always what drives decision-making right so so first of all There's just the power of inertia But when it comes to something like college and college for your children and college for yourself The emotion that drives the decision is very powerful And there's a new book in deadness by Caitlyn Lou that talks about You know, that's a thread that runs throughout this and I can say it again for myself I took on personal, you know personal debt to the parent plus program Even though I had a colleague who's here today telling you don't do that Diane It's not like I didn't know as editor-in-chief of money magazine not to do that It's not like I didn't know And I you know Counseled my daughter on the amount of graduate school that she took on Didn't matter, you know, she wanted the school she wanted She wanted the program that she wanted and that we have to take that just like just in time information into account as well Thank you. This is very interesting. I Actually wanted to ask if there is a breakdown between students who take out living expenses and Just education debt You know in in my limited research, there seems to be a huge disparity in terms of communities of color and economic Socioeconomic status and how they do that like some of you I was extremely fortunate to come out of undergrad with no debt But went into a law program Again, I was fortunate enough to live at home when I did that but majority of the students that I went to law school with all took out living expenses and You know, right now they are planning to pay back their loans as part of their retirement program because they'll be well into their 60s By the time they're completed taking paying back the loans So I'm wondering if there's any deep research there on on undergraduate students who are also taking out living expenses that actually Majority of what we are talking about is is including living expenses So that often what we have all been talking about group of wrong Is looking at sort of the full cost of attendance of going to college to write tuition and fees the room and board Whether that's room and board living on campus or you have decided that you're living at home Right like you still have an allotment of what is your cost of attendance at the institution? And not for a lot of what we are talking about It is including all of those sorts of expenses within as well. It usually happens is you get Approved for however amount that you can you can take out take out more Then maybe the cost of tuition is and then you get a refund check, right? And so how do you hold on to that refund check or do you need to use that refund check to pay for a Cost of living expenses while you're in college If you don't have to pay though, you know You can hold on to that refund check and swing it into the next semester or the next year to pay down some of your tuition But a lot of a lot of students need that money They rely on that money for the cost for the extra cost Interesting stuff I've seen around this is that some researchers have looked to see that even universities are in the same Metropolitan area they can actually and do actually charge a different amount For right all of those living expenses. So one of the things that's really interesting is that living expenses are very It is autonomous within sort of the institution to to make decisions around what their living expenses are In a way that I think if we want to talk about like smaller lever points that would be very useful It would be useful to think about how we more it doesn't make as much sense that these 15 universities in Boston all have slightly different charges for how much it costs to eat, right? Hi, thank you for this. It's been really illuminating In my experience as a dean and then in research after it. I was struck by The prevalence of a second kind of debt problem Maybe crisis which is in what I call institutional debt unpaid balances that students owe their institution Some something like 30% of all undergraduates and each academic year in a rears to their institution and a huge number of folks who stop out or block from re-entry because of The debts that they owe their their past institutions. I wonder if you've done any Research on the interaction between that institutional debt and student loan debt I think there's a thing that I'm trying to pick up the top of my head. I believe someone has done some research looking at sort of honor loans Which is a slightly different right? That is actually where you get a line of credit sort of at your institution for a short-term loan that you need to repay And I think there's been some nascent research looking at for profit In particular because some of the lawsuits that have been brought in recent years have shown that sort of some institutions were steered towards Specialized types of loans that were institutional only, but I don't know of that much research looking at exactly what you're talking about Much media coverage of it. That's that's That is news to me. That's something that I that I didn't realize that seems to me worth looking into Hear that news we colleagues More questions So I'm gonna take over for a second. Can you raise your hand if you have a graduate degree? Ow so 12% of the population has a graduate degree and like at least 80% of the people in this room have a graduate degree, so I guess the thing that I try to think about a lot when I'm doing research and writing about student debt is the fact that we are operating in a very skewed environment and That Capitol Hill is operating a very skewed environment and the media is operating in the same environment And I guess how do you think that we can kind of combat that narrative and illustrate to people? How real people are dealing with these issues? You know not to say that we're not real people, but we're kind of not I Think this is why it's incredibly important to bring viral voices to the floor and I'll say As I mentioned several times we've done a series of focus groups will be a report coming out soon But when we were doing the focus groups We did what any responsible research team would do and we scan the field to see what had already been done And we were able to convene everyone that we were aware of that had published on the topic around one table So I think encouraging people to bring to your point Bar our voices to the front to really underscore what individual families are dealing with what their financial situations are what they're worried about and also their Perception again because a lot of DC believe it or not Traffics in reality in terms of data, right? And I think we don't traffic enough in perception That was the reason behind the cover story mean exactly that because the narrative is so different than What the reality is for the majority of borrowers there do we have time for more questions? Hi, sorry from the back of the room. I'm Greg Shuckman from the University of Central Florida I appreciate the panel one of the things that we've struggled with in higher ed is about Trying to get this narrative to disaggregate by sector because the debt for publics is much different than the debt for Privates, which is very much different from the proprietary institutions and so in our case You know half of our students are in graduate with any debt most of the students the vast majority students are regent with less than $10,000 of debt so While this panel was going on there were two reports actually Released one was by the Census Bureau talking about poverty statistics Poverty has actually come down a half a point which is staggering But there was one group where the number actually went up and it was for people 25 and over without a degree About a high school diploma and their poverty statistic is now over one in four So the people who most need education Are the people who don't have it and they get scared away by these you know hundred thousand two hundred thousand dollars of debt so we have to We have to find a better way to frame This conversation about debt. It's it's very real and we're very aware of it, but if we don't Target the message by Sector better We're scaring away the people who need the education most Yeah, I'll say I think this links a lot with the last question right that what we try to think about The writing that I do more often than honest for academic journals So it's not that scintillating but I try but One of the main things right is that like often we do a sort of like Hat tip repeat right like these are these are the facts on the ground And and we try to sort of repeatedly say these are the facts on the ground about how much do people borrow What is the average amount those types of things? I Would hazard a guess right like that's part of the reason that this entire event is occurring is to try to think about What are better ways to clear up misconceptions around borrowing? Excuse me it might be one of the things is that like if every one of us leaves today And the next time like these types of things come up. We actually say well, but you know Which I mean will make you a really great person at a party Um But but that it might be that a piece of that like I consider is like stealth Acknowledgement of a lot of these topics Is that like when my friends talk to me about these types of issues? I mentioned the ways that public institutions can vary greatly from Private for profit institutions as a particular if we want to sort of go a wide spectrum So yeah, I think that's fair and incredibly important contribution to the field would be more data a lot of the research and a lot of the information that's out there is limited just because You would think that we know x y and z things and many things We just don't know as a field because there aren't nuanced detailed data and some of the data We do have lag so I will put a plug in for additional data You know right now we're taking a little bit of a bag borrow and steal approach But if anyone has other good ideas, we are all ears Oh Stop, I got a giant stop Oh much to say on this topic and these were wonderful questions that would have led us to a great Conversation, but there is another really great panel waiting to happen So I just want to thank you for being a great audience Thank New America for having us and especially thanks to these three great panelists to the insights in the research Thank you Well, what a great panel and To continue with the excitement the conversations the next conversation is about students and for this panel this year we collaborate with the Aspen post-secondary success for parents initiative, which is an initiative from The aspect of send programs and we invited their student to come and share with us about how students with dependence Navigate the system and without photo. Do I would like to introduce our next panel? So you guys asked to hear from real people. Guess what we have real people This is the best As these guys get settled I'll just introduce myself I'm a listen ad warning I cover education for NPR and I've been doing a lot of reporting around students and I'm driven a little bit in part by a new America's student perceptions of who we think college students are and who actually are Who college students are so I'm super excited to hear from you guys because you are really the experts on all the stuff we're talking about so these are all student parents and We're gonna start off by maybe having you guys introduce yourself and about a fifth of one fifth of college students are Students with dependents, so that's almost four million college students So that's like really good to kind of keep in mind that you guys are Part of a massive group of students, right? You're not alone in this So why don't you start by just kind of introducing yourself? Tell us a little bit about you and Your kids I can start I'm Brandy block I'm currently a manager at a sport clips So I have an eight-year-old. He'll be nine at the end of the month and just like a little bit about my like educational journey so I Went to cosmetology school straight out of high school and practice in the field for some time Got kind of burnt out just didn't feel like I was getting anywhere in my career My mom is a formerly incarcerated woman Who struggles with addiction? my dad grew up with the Impression that his role was to work and provide for the family so as far as getting counseling on career education and Pathways to education. It was non-existent in my family. So Kind of the solution for my dad was get into a trade. That's an easy way to make money, which is what worked for him so anyways, I went into cosmetology practice for some time and Just decided that I needed to get a real job in a real career so Entered into the airline industry and felt really fortunate that I was able to find a really viable career without a degree Did that for some time met my son's father and then we had my son Through that there was a relationship that fell apart while I was pregnant and Simultaneously like within days. I was also furloughed from my job. So within a matter of days I went from having a really great career to being unemployed About to be a single mom homeless Because I was living with his father and no viable Answers of like what I should do next. So I found a program called Jeremiah program It's a two-gen program and their mission is to pull together Resources that already exist social service programs that are already in existence remove unnecessary barriers to make a Pathway for a single mom is who they target specifically to get a degree in a timely way So I finished my bachelor's degree with a two-year-old in two years But I couldn't have done that without the assistance of a program like that Yeah, so and and with that program came counseling on advising on loans Advising on I had to have an education plan I was expected to commit to that plan and stay with it So then that lingering in the educational system didn't happen for me. There was some Advising on options to look for like what what loans were available and what those look like and what the repayment for that would be and You know when you get that check, you know they approve you for that X amount of dollars over and You're literally living off of three hundred dollars cash assistance that you had to spend eight hours in a county office to get That check looks real nice. Like that looks, you know, that's like a that's Christmas presents. That's gas in my car That's you know, like things diapers wipes, you know that kind of stuff child care because the wait list I I had a hard time getting on Getting assistance for child care because the wait list was the long so I guess my point is It's complicated and it was the long journey and I couldn't have done it without the assistance of some sort of program intervening to To advise me because my parents weren't capable of doing that Like no, no, that was great Just kind of a big thank you to you guys from the beginning because you guys are gonna be talking about your lives And it's such an honor to hear your stories And we just really appreciate you guys being like an open book and talking about this stuff, which can be hard So go ahead Leslie. My name is Leslie Del Rio. I'm from Denver, Colorado I have a son. He is eight years old. So I had my son when I was 18 Prior to having my son. I dropped out of high school Due to my life circumstances, my mom is an immigrant undocumented and she lost her job. So I had to go to work And other things, you know, not just my mom not working I just didn't I didn't really see I didn't really see the value in in an education even a high school degree But after I had my son, I found a program called Florence Crenton Services, which is also a two-gen program Which is a high school for pregnant parenting teen moms And so there you take your child to school to early child care center And you also take yourself to school and go to high school And so it's accredited Denver Public School with the Denver Public School curriculum Plus all kinds of wraparound services, so mental health support, assistance programs Things, you know, just like diapers and wipes for good attendance So you don't feel like you're not raising your child while you're, you know, in high school And so that was a really good program that I got into that got me through high school And through that I really got engaged in the community in public speaking and leadership and and Youth sexual health a lot and so after that I I went to work for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment while simultaneously Having a breakup going through domestic violence raising my kid moving out being 21 years old Entering the workforce and also going to college at the community college So as you can imagine college wasn't my first priority Surviving was paying my bills and the cliff effect is real So I got off of public assistance because I got a job and so I lost a lot of things So I was able to grasp child care assistance But only for work and not for school and so I Kind of just lingered on in the in the education system the post-secondary education system for a really long time I took a class here in there, but then I started to move on for forward in my career Going into other things like social services like human services Development volunteers and things like that and I just took a class here in there but I never really you know took the huge step to fully go into college and That that's been my journey Until until last year. I was in the parent Panel or parent advisory committee for the Aspen Ascend Institute and where we did some type of research on post-secondary education on parents with children or students with children sorry and I met somebody from a a Competency-based Education Center in Austin, Texas, but I'm from Colorado and so I cannot move to Texas and so It's an online school that They I was fortunate enough to get into Which was you know, just lucky of me to meet these people in the time that I did and so I am now pursuing post-secondary education to Southern New Hampshire University College for America My name is Ariel Ventura I was born and raised in Alexandria, Virginia, which is about 20 or 30 minutes right outside of DC where we are right now depending on traffic I'm a first-generation American First in my family go to college. I have an eight year old son who will be nine in December and I have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter She swears. She's ten years old But as you can imagine it is a handful um, I Originally started my post-secondary education journey In 2009 right out of high school. I Was ill-prepared for it at the time I took on a full-time job Which acquired maybe 60 hours a week of my time and so essentially ended up filling every class and dropping out a few months after that I My spouse and I ended up pregnant and awaiting our the birth of our child and I felt that I had to work full-time I felt stuck. I took a five-year hiatus At that same job where I hit the glass ceiling many years before I decided to go Back and pursue my post-secondary education. I ended up finding out that College was going to be essential for the success of myself and my family and to provide some type of financial stability for my family After that The reason why I decided to go back to college was because of a scholarship program in the area called generation hope and they They believed in me. I think that's the first and most important thing and they gave me the opportunity to You know attain access to college they provide tuition assistance and mentorship as well I think the mentorship portion has been really the key piece for my success Being a first gen navigating the ropes of college can be a very difficult thing to do especially as a parent especially with You know coming from a low-income background From that point forward My first few semesters. I ended up earning a 4.0, which is the first time I had ever earned a 4.0 in my life I had earned during my journey. I had earned Besides that scholarship program I managed to earn five more scholarships To pay for my entirety of the tuition at the community college level because the financial aid wasn't going to be enough to cover everything while also maintaining ended up working as a work-study job on the college campus, which was not enough and that entailed a navigating social services and That was everything that was snap tanif medicaid just everything and what I can remember is a lot of the processes For that were very difficult to attain and they were very difficult to keep it was a part-time job in itself Having to go to different professors and instructors having them sign my county form Proving that I was actually in class It was embarrassing nonetheless in the grading a little bit. Um, and so with many challenges and obstacles with that we Just last year. We ended up finally my wife and I ended up finally coming off of snap food stamps, which is a big step for us and We ended up graduating from the community college and we each earned our social our associates degree on Mother's Day in 2017 and our children were actually in the crowd watching us walk across that stage being the first in each of our families to attain some sort of college degree and After that I secured a job at the community college that I had graduated from I'm currently a program advisor there for leadership students And we do a lot of volunteer work in the community which I call my day job and a lot of the independent worker a lot of side jobs and a lot of the other stuff that I'm really involved in and I Really love to do is advocating for post-secondary education advocating for family the low income first generation college students and first generation Americans just Because I know that if I didn't have the program support set in place at the time that I decided to go back That I don't think I would have been successful in my career. I'm currently studying business management and during my senior year at George Masing University I have about a year and a half to go It's a really busy schedule. Just this more Just this morning getting both kids ready dropping them off at each of their locations just to come back here and After this after this conference gonna go scoop them right back dropping off drop them off with my mom so that I can go to my nightclass from 7 to 10 tonight and basically do it all over again tomorrow That's where I'm at today So good morning, my name is Joseph Yusuf I'm not sure what even start my daughter. Name is jacala. She's currently six years old about to be seven. She's born and Thanksgiving My experience with higher ed so originally when I was going to college I started at UDC CC and I spent two years there and even just college as a general like as a Expectation for me. I tell myself. I wouldn't have to go to college I tell myself that I'll be great as a music producer. You can't tell me anything Going to succeed right and reality hit me immediately and I realized like Even in the process of my daughter being born I just realized like when she came when she came out the room I was like, this is the moment where I have to change and so You know from having this mindset to saying no college is an option. No, I'm not going to college to saying. Oh, hey wait a minute I'm going to go to college and with that mindset of my area if I go to college I don't want to pay for it and I was like, how do I pay for it? And I remember just going around search for scholarships and one of the first scholarships I came about was generation hope and me and Ariel is still in the same program but um, I came across generation of hope and I just remember being amazed at a program that Was dedicated to young parents not just young young Young mothers but young fathers as well. And so for me that was just a ticket and just the way I wanted to go And I remember applying and that's there wasn't really the best, but it gradually got better I remember out in my two years there. I put in a transfer for American University and Howard University Luckily, I got into both but due to the support I went with Howard instead Ever since then just College, I don't know. I see college has a way to go for me. I appreciate it And I definitely do love college and I'm happy that my experience is going to Howard has rubbed off on my daughter If you ask her right now, we'll call you and go to a shit scream Howard University. So Get down a couple of threads that I want to follow up with all of you The first is childcare because it just feels like we can't talk about being a student parent and going to college without talking about child care, so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about Give us a sense of what that looked like and kind of Maybe some of the hard decisions you had to make around child care Whether it be you couldn't take classes at night because there's no childcare at night or or bargains you made with family members or Just give us kind of a glimpse into some of those challenges some of those decisions. I So I have kind of a unique situation But I think each of our stories are unique as every family in America is unique And I think that that's like Essentially what the main issue is right? We're trying to create policy that dictates What's best for the majority, but none of us look the same? So my scenario is that I moved to Minnesota for a job. It was supposed to be a professional move I was only gonna be there for a year maybe to and then I was gonna go back home to where I had my community So when my son was born, I did the only people I knew were people who worked for me So that put me in kind of a weird dynamic then when I lost my job that community Kind of went away. It was a little distant. So I didn't feel like I had anyone to ask Can you watch my son? Can you like these sort of things? Same my son's father's in law enforcement. He works overnight. So 10 at night till 7 in the morning So the large burden For childcare fell on me to figure that out Especially because I wasn't employed at the time so in his mind that like what else are you doing like take care of the kid? Of course So then also because of the track that I was on to get my education it required me to take I took these six weeks. It would be a semester long class that was offered in six weeks So there are very intensive classes But the classes were only offered from five to nine at night So now I have a two-year-old in Minnesota in winter that I am having to at ten o'clock at night Pick up from someone's home to then drag back to my apartment And now it's 11 or so at night and then I would have daycare assistance during the day through the Jeremiah program Which was helpful and I'm so grateful for it But it was a huge burden and there were times when I needed to take my son to school because I just Didn't have an option. So then I was faced with potentially taking my son into the classroom and then the stress of trying to get a two three-year-old to sit still for four hours And me focus on what's happening in class but then also the potential humiliation of a professor asking me to leave the class because I wasn't Subscribing to what we feel like is the norm of a college student There no it did happen. Yeah, there it and actually in a psychology class with a female professor, which was I Felt extra hurtful because it was just like you seriously can't like see that. I'm literally trying to do the best I can So yeah, it just it was a constant daily struggle so on top of then managing work and You know grocery shopping and laundry and potty training and these sort of things that I'm also like who's gonna watch my kid three nights a week and Getting to class and all those other barriers. So it's just like an additional layer of stress You mentioned earlier wait list that you want a wait list. Yeah, that's as far as I know I'm still on the wait list. Yeah, I've never gotten notification that we like moved up on the list. I've never so yeah, I yeah, it was the Early childhood education I Forget I still have the papers, but it's yeah, it's the wait list and they don't even give like an idea of when Potentially like an estimate of in ten years. You might have childcare options for you So when you were in school you were living with your mom and your grandmother and You know, we talked a little bit about how that's kind of built-in childcare, but it has maybe some disadvantages You know, there's still conversations there. You talk a little bit about that I have the force will have a portion of that live with my mother and grandmother and for me It wasn't much of a problem. It's like hey, I gotta go to school. You might wash in her great But the thing is You're great at something you don't do it for free and it's like with my grandmother. It's like money money talks You know, it's like yeah, I do love you and yeah, you're my grandson, but I Need that at the end of the day and so I guess if there was any problems. It was just being able to pay her for her first skill But it was always a good experience Good experience even when I did take my daughter to class my professors were always cool with it I was like you got a daughter And I was like wow that's kind of amazing because usually when you have that experience. It's like that's a distraction No, but to have her come to class and to have her want to you know Act like a student and learn something and write something. It was just always good experience Some of the frictions that you felt experiencing college I mean Leslie you and I talked about night classes how people kind of assume like oh night classes will be great for people with flexible schedules This is not actually it was a little difficult And it was just a personal choice that I had to take because being a single parent being the only person that's raising my child I really had to think about What I valued more was it education or was it raising my child the best that I could and being there to pick Them up to drop them off from school be there to do his homework be there at football practice and do all of these things Be there for his nighttime routine and that was something that I lacked in my life And I really really wanted to give him right because we had all of these other risk factors going on in our lives I really wanted to provide that protective factor in home of you can always count on your mom Your mom will be there before school after school when you're brushing your teeth to potty turn you to do all these things And so yeah night school was an option and I did take the night classes, but just like Joseph I had to rely on my family and friends to do that and I did that for about two two classes two semesters And I didn't want to do it anymore just because You know, he was already away at school while I was at work And I just missed a lot and I felt like that wasn't it wasn't worth it to me and People always think like oh well you're working adult just take night classes Yeah, but there's no child care and more and and furthermore. There's no child care for kids above four Right, even if you take morning classes, it's only early early child care Right, it's only or sometimes even just kindergarten and so I have an older kid. Oh, right He was first and second grade kindergarten and there wasn't any child care provided in the college campus for him And so I needed to work while he was at school And I wanted to go to school when he was out of school and it just it just didn't work out for me And I never took him to school just because I always had that fear of you know I think maybe it's a mom thing, right? It's like a mom shame I always felt like someone was gonna tell me get out of here You can't have kids here kids are not allowed in here or something like that So that's why I chose the path that I have now and it's actually been working really really well for me To do online classes. So I get to choose, you know when I get to sit down and do this I could do it at his football practice or we go every Tuesday and Thursday me with my tutor and my advisor at the Library so he's doing the library activity and I'm watching him and I'm there with him and I'm you know talking to my advisor We're getting tutoring So it's worked out great for us, you know Even on the weekends if I have some time all you know, he'll go to the park while I'm on my computer or drink football practice or Whatever sport he's into This whatever this season He's doing practice and I'm on my computer and I'm physically there And you know, he'll wave at me and I'll wave back and stuff like that. So I'm present and but I'm still you know working towards my my personal goal How you had maybe perceptions of what college is and kind of maybe what your professors would say or what people would Think about you on campus. I wonder if you could straighten some of that stuff up for us Like what are some misperceptions that people have about who goes to college or what do you want people to know about being a student Yeah, jump in some of the misperceptions are The fact that student parents They don't have motivation or they lack interest in Participating or and it's the fact that we just can't One of the biggest misperceptions is statistics actually show that student parents are less likely to graduate than you know students traditional students right and It can be misperceived that it's because we don't have that motivation or driving for us But we do it's I mean they couldn't be more wrong that that's what it is It's the fact that we don't have the supports set in place and the universities and colleges tend to cater to other programs and departments So I think that's one of the biggest misperceptions But we're not foreign like we are students, we're just parents first and On it's got you you probably work twice or three times just as hard You definitely always do need that support and you know, just don't be afraid to help us out Well, that's just a simple. Hey, how are you doing today? Hey, how's your daughter doing like we're humans, you know, I think a Misperception that I have encountered is Yeah, that I'm not like I'm not engaged or I didn't want to be there or like that kind of stuff And it's like Literally getting a C in psychology will get me this piece of paper that I need to have and that is all I can manage right now So it's like I was up until 2 o'clock with the screaming child like this is not a priority So and that conversation had to be had with several professors and I was in an adult education program so the program was supposed to be catered to adults and so it blew my mind that Like you don't even understand like who you're teaching right now that you would make such a wild statement to me that I don't care about Your class. It's not that it's just that I only had 45 minutes to give to this paper that you are having me, right? But literally nobody else is ever going to read So it just wasn't a big priority Yeah, the perspective of it that you know my screaming child took you know took that time out of being able to put what I Actually wanted to put into a paper So if instead of if we shifted the perspective instead of that I wasn't working hard enough and the professor would have came to me and said like My experience with you is that you're very articulate and thoughtful and these sort of things this paper doesn't reflect that Is there something going on is there something happening? Is there something that I can do to make this better for you or or I mean anything like that would have been nice Yeah About motivation people don't think you're motivated I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your motivations Tell us I mean what motivated you to get your degrees or to keep going or to go back to school and what motivates you now Yeah, yeah being in the work first and being Having a lot of experience in different fields and being fortunate enough to get to do that With the high school diploma. I had a lot of adoration on me And so every you know, I went to interviews and people that I knew and I've always I've Dedicated myself to the nonprofit world in Colorado and so you know everyone's like hey We've heard great things about you and blah blah blah, but you don't have an education that sucks You don't have a degree that sucks You have great experience you do great work, but you don't have a degree. Sorry And so that's been one of my motivations is I do want the flexibility. I do want You know just that accreditation to my skill set to my experience to back me up, but also for my child One of my advisor actually I was having a hard time with completing work when work got busy and and things like that and She kind of just said you know You've invested a lot in the community and in your son and doing all of these things When are you gonna invest in yourself? And that's really stuck to me because I feel like I've done a lot of good work in my community and with my son I'm fortunate enough to say that he I feel like he does have a really good life But I don't think that I have invested in myself as much With that, you know being a degree and that's my goal and post-secondary education And all of those good things that come with it and so I think that's my motivation is now, you know My son is in a good place He's not a baby And I think that's one of the misconceptions that people have about student parents is that we all have babies Like everyone like they're all babies, you know, and they're not there They're you know, some of them are big some are small some of them are teens Some you know, so they're varying ages, but he is in a good place now that you know I think he sees me and he he's like feels proud of me And and that's also my motivation too is him seeing me go You know meet with these people and do school work and sit down and do homework together all those things It motivates me because he sees it and he you know, he talks about it and he he reflects it, which is really good It's a lot to do with my children too, but it also comes from my roots and my heritage My mom came to the United States in 1989 to seek a better life She escaped a war-torn country which had no hope for her Probably no life for her out there and she came here because she wanted the future of her children to be bright and I Feel or I take it as that she brought me to a platform that You know, I can have the opportunities that I have and I'm afforded today She wanted to go to college, but she wasn't afforded that opportunity there was she was not allowed to in her country and Coming here with just a few dollars in her pocket. She had to get right to work And so I feel that you know, she passed me the beacon passed me the torch so that I can also You know, she brought me this high I got to get this much higher for my children and I expect them to do the same Just think about that question. I had a moment where I had a reminisce. I think the reason why So I just remember being at this party party before I even thought about college and I remember talking to this lady I was like, yeah, you got a nice car and that's great and all that. She's like, yeah, you want that? I was like, yeah, and she was like, well, you won't be able to have it and I was like, why she was like Without your degree, you're just gonna be another I Would love to say the word but obviously restrictions But she was just like you'll be another I'll say victim and it's still with me and I was like, I was like, wow, that's like like To certain degree if you don't have that paper if you don't have that validation What can you really be and I tell myself? I was like from that day on I'm going to be somebody I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I'm going to be the best that ever. I'm going to be the best student and Basically, I love it. Be the best I can possibly be I wonder so you guys are the experts. I started that with that, you know I was talking about that. What do you suggest for policymakers or for presidents of colleges to make those spaces easier to navigate for you or Make you feel more welcome. Do you have any suggestions for them from your experience? Before I left Howard, you know how long campuses you see banners of like the famous people and just your average student How come you never see student parents on those flyers? How come we're there you have a population? I mean, I'd be the biggest but there's a population where student parents exist Advocate for show us. Let us let us see ourselves on your campus. I'm tired of seeing the old black and white I'm tired of seeing these young faces not like that, but I'm tired of just seeing these Like defaults like I'm tired of it like change things. Let me see me, you know, I think too for me it was You know creative scheduling priority registration, you know on campuses where parking and child care aren't offered You know yet athletes are getting these things and like let's talk about where our priorities are are we trying to You know use education as a lever for change Like then we need to offer it to those people We need to make sure that it is a lever for change and that it's not Something being sold to people Who when you're in you know a certain demographic then it becomes another shackle That keeps us in poverty Earlier about the populations that need it the most are the ones that are you know that don't have access to it And so you know like Joseph was saying yeah these conversations happen here But I don't think they happen enough outside of these these conversations right outside of these walls outside of these conferences Student parents exist they exist in many different ways, but in a lot of ways we're we're invisible Right, and it's not to say that every student parent wants to talk about their children But and some of some of them them don't ever even disclose that I mean somebody in our in our cohort Never disclose that she was a student parent because of the fear of the shame that they that would come with it And so some of some of us are invisible some of us hide our struggles in our barriers And so I would call on to the presidents of colleges and universities policymakers and people to to think about this population because we are there we have been there for really long time and We do need unique things like what Brittany was saying and also Thinking about us individually, right? And so that's really hard to do when everyone's story is so Different, but also you know the struggles are over you know over arching And so thinking about us as an individual as an individual but as a population in general and what what the what the challenges are And I think that would that would make make it even more appealing for a lot of people even people that need it the most right like the The population that that the gentleman was talking about over 25 right that only have a high school diploma Those are the people that needed the most and those are probably the people that have children right now, right? 27 to 25 to 30 they have children and they cannot go back to school when we don't see ourselves on the fires when we Don't see anything advertised for student parents for prior to registration for child care for after-school activities or transportation Things like that. I think the barriers are way way more than you know Then what what even people can think about so I would just have Make it a challenge to talk about student parents talk about the solutions or the breakdown of the barriers when you're having conversations with people in power Invest in programs and resources that support student parents I Don't know how many college presidents would actually be aware of how many student parents are actually attending their campuses and at what times of the day they're actually Going to class but providing additional supports like I possibly can't make it to general advising from nine to five Because I'm working there at a time where I'm you know taking care of my child And I'm going to night class and when I need to find out what's going on my financial aid the offices are closed And I have to wait till next week to take it. They are stuff like that You know going on the website my first year at Mason a summer before I attended I was looking up all over the website for about an hour straight Some supports for her student parents. I looked up student parents. I looked up parent learners I looked up so many search criteria that I looked up. I couldn't find it. I found students parents It's not quite the same thing and even at the new student orientation where all the departments and all the faculty and staff are there For you know supposedly every type of student here. I am going from table to table Trying to find the support or resource that would be that would best accommodate me and they could not point me in the right direction for student parents so just Trying to understand that there are student parents on campus that do attend and that they do have additional barriers and Invest in those supports and invest in those resources Just like how we love or athletes to come to our colleges make scholarships for us student make scholarships and grants let us apply as well very simple More supports and we haven't really talked about that that much I mean you talked a little bit about the programs that you've been into what were some things or moments that really helped you whether it be Support or a program or a mentor At the community college level There were so many supports there for me at the time that I went which is northern Virginia community college They had this program called adult career pathways at the time where It was for non-traditional students generally over the age of 24 Generally working, you know student parents and such and they provided a holistic approach and so that included a Case management Where my advisor would meet me at a Wegmans will meet me at a Starbucks After hours at 7 30 after I got off work with my children there to help me select classes for next semester or help me find out What's going on with my financial aid? And so they were they also provided me with resources They also directed me in the way I needed to go if I had a social service issue They had a dual generation initiative on the on the campus Where there were programs and trainings for both myself and my children to attend During weekend and stuff were generally people maybe on working They had back-to-school drives. They had diaper banks They had they had a lot going on for student parents Unfortunately, that funding was cut from but I had a graduate at that point that funding was cut now So when I transferred over to the four-year university, I didn't see any of that at all I felt like a small fish in a big pond So those are as far as my success at the community college level stuff like that a dual generation initiative or just programs for student parents like that Yeah, that we're investing in in you and people like you I would say roll to leverage a program at my community college ASAP It's I forget what it's the actual acronym is but it's accelerated success for adult learners so they Have created a program where I was able to leverage my work experience in the airline industry And so I was able to then write a massive paper Addressing all the you know eight criteria that would would have been addressed on the syllabus For that class had I taken it the benefit to that was I mean there was a lot of benefits But the the perk for credit tuition was significantly less the time that I spent in in an actual classroom in front of a professor was the two hours when I had to present my paper and Have you know a dialogue with the professor and they either said yes You pass or no you don't and I either got the credit or I didn't But I in one semester was able to take 36 credits And that's the only way I was able to get my bachelor's degree in two years but I had all this work experience and a lot of Parents do and so like why and a lot of people do so like why are we wasting people's time and having them spend all this Unnecessary time in college paying Insane amounts of money for tuition when they have this experience like let's get them into a class where they're actually going to learn Something that they can then take into the workforce and impact our whole community Yeah, and you're also doing a competency-based program right now So that does that resonate with you? It does it does. Yeah, I think where I thrived in my high school We had a lot of wraparound supports, right? So and I mentioned that and flow crit was great at that and so being really supported and be feeling really empowered as a mom and as a learner and then jumping into college and in the workforce You know, I thrived in the workforce because I was seen as an adult and and stuff like that But in the college I wasn't seen as my whole self And so I just it was it did not I did not function well I did not do well and so now with this competency-based education like Brittany was saying I am I Can take you know a lot of classes and prove that I know how to write an essay prove that I know How to do an Excel spreadsheet? And and get those credits really quickly, right? I can I know how to do resume and cover letter because I've done that for so long so I can I can showcase my experience and and my skills and get credit for those but then like MOU, you know Now I need to learn how to do that, right and all these things Memorandum of a great of understanding Yes, okay Haven't I'm still I'm still learning And so, you know like I need to spend more time on that so I'm not gonna pass that You know get that credit because I still need to do it And so that's why I meet with my tutor and with my advisor and things like that And so feeling really supported again and feeling like I can showcase my whole self Has really been helpful for me and has been a pivoting point and thinking about education and its worthiness in my life Open it up for some questions. Thank you guys so much. I mean we're gonna talk with you guys But this is great, right? Do we have questions So if you had the opportunity and you were in a position of authority and power to Do things differently so that it would make your life easier or You know others who are coming up behind you. What would you? Suggest or recommend Like, you know, I could go really big and say everyone needs like a type of support system for student for parents You know students in your colleges that means wrap around support like mental health services at the time and place that they need them to be Child care all these you know all these things transportation Work or you know some type of funding so all like rent assistance all that stuff But for me, I feel like if the services that I've that I got provided in high school That got me through that time can also transfer into college. I would I would have done it in no time I would have maybe even been with my master's by now to be honest with you And so I feel like partnering up with people right not Recreating the wheel but partnering up with people that have the funding that have the resources that have this nailed down and Transferring it into a college setting because if you don't if you're you know small Facility and you cannot you don't have the funding to do it You don't know where to start partnering up with people who can and maybe you know finding a funding like Funding opportunities to expound that into your college or into your facility or whatever that is Looking at Systems that are already in place and like what can we do to un-silo the social service system? So that that's more accessible for student parents So that I'm not spending five to seven days in the social service office every month to try and just get food on my table So that I can focus on my degree Childcare centers on campus like it's wild to me, but 25% of a population on a campus Has a child and like there's nowhere for me to put the kid like where to what do I do with him like? So that like just I think little things like that could make a huge difference and then just looking at like Is your scheduling flexible? Are you are you looking for creative ways to solve problems? So, you know, yeah, you might have like this policy That blankets for the large majority, but then what about those people that don't fit that criteria like what then is the The pathway for them like where did where did they go? Do they just drop off your radar and you don't care because they don't fit into this pretty box that looks nice when you Present to people that are funding or are you saying they're important to us? Because they're part of our community and we want to like move our community forward. I am In addition to working for UCF. I was also on the board of Northern Virginia Community College So I was really happy to hear the experience you had at Nova and I'm glad that we served you well The point you made about writing the massive paper that got you the 36 credits I think that you referring to something called a portfolio learning assessment and PLAs are a really useful tool as you pointed out to getting credit You had to enroll in a class though, right in order to do that. Yep. So that was that was how you were able to pay For that assessment was actually by enrolling in a class Because federal aid doesn't pay for the cost of PLAs you have to do the class in addition Did the school make it easy for you to understand how to do that? Did they They frame it in a way that said you can get this many credits or this many credits depending on what you do I'm just really curious. I got really I feel like really lucky. I ended up in a Class with a professor and him and I just jived right away And he's like what are you doing in this class? Like did you know that we have this whole program like why are you taking this class and it was like well Because I want to get this degree and this is my plan and I'm when I started at the Jeremiah program My initial plan was only to get my associate's degree. So I had 24 months To complete that was all that they were then committing to help me was for 24 months So then after this conversation with this professor this program exists here And so he helped get me connected with the advisor that was running the program from there It was the next semester. I was enrolled in the class that laid out like how So there was a semester-long course that I had to take In that class you were sitting with other people that were going to do these PLAs with you And you mapped out then what your I Think my degree is even an independent learning degree with Focus on business administration So that was like so that was what I picked and then from there these were the criteria that I had to meet To get that and then we went through and like with my resume I can take this this this this and and you know Then we looked at like mapping it all out and like so I knew when I was going to take each of my classes before I even registered for my I think was like my third class like I had my whole two years mapped out But I mean I could have even done it faster I wasted an entire semester taking two traditional classes that I Literally didn't need to take at three times the cost of what it would have taken me to take those through a PLA Yeah, nobody from the university as far as like in administration or Admissions ever and and they knew I had a kid. They knew I was you know an adult They knew I had you know this the career backgrounds. I had had two careers at that point And nobody had offered this as like a solution or an option or even like would you be interested in? This is something that you would want, but it also blows my mind that that's not something that's on every campus Like why are why why is that not a thing everywhere? I don't know probably money Hey there, thanks so much for for joining us. This is incredible So again, if this is too personal don't don't answer it But I'm thinking about our first panel which was talking about student debt And I was wondering if any of you took on debt and if you did how did you think about that? And if you didn't why didn't you you know just all of those questions? And if you did take it what did you use it for like did you use it for childcare? Did you use it for anything else? So I have Hello, there we go. All right. So right now my debt is at 22,000 and that's including the Interest there we go 10,000 of that just came this last year and that was just me being like goofy and being a senior and just like you know What it's going to get paid back eventually why not ball out? Um Very close But for the most part I definitely use it for childcare. I know when I first received one of those refunds I was like, you know what jacala? We're gonna go get you some howler gear and get you some shoes There we go. I'm gonna get you some howler gear. Get you some shoes We're gonna have a good play date all that good stuff and I remember Doing all of that. I was like, this is worth it. But then I was like, man, I start to pay this back But at the end of the day, it's like, I know I'm capable of kind of bad. Why not do it? I'm okay with it. So long without that you're like Like I've worked so hard like when do I get some sort of like reward or validation because So I've taken out debt. I took out debt for my cosmetology school So because my mom's a two-time felon it made getting fast for cosmetology school incredibly difficult So I went out and got married when I was 18 because that was seems like a really great solution Yeah, so took out I was able to get you know the student loans and like that kind of stuff But then also got really bad advice after I finished my cosmetology the interest rates really low Don't worry about it. Just pay the minimum, you know that kind of stuff so I carried that loan for a really long time and then Catastrophic events happen that were beyond my control of a relationship ending a child You know like ending up homeless without a job like all these sort of things That then I was like now I have this debt from all these years ago And now somebody's telling me the only way for me to change my family's trajectory is to incur more debt To go get this college degree and now I have the college degree and the thing I think is so ironic about it Is nobody pays me more money to cut their hair because I have a bachelor's degree Not one person So the irony of it is that I now have this bachelor's degree in business administration I do use it. I do find it useful, but I could have I Could have ended up in the exact same spot. I'm in now without that bachelor's degree I do feel a sense of security knowing that if something were to happen to my physical body Carpal tunnel or I fall and break an arm or car accident and I'm paralyzed They can't stand anymore. Like that is no longer a viable Career for me. So I do find a lot of peace in knowing that I have this paper that I do feel like Opens a lot of doors for me. I Still have some debt. Yeah, but um considering I have to you know, too My well, I got an associate's degree a bachelor's degree and also my cosmetology license. Um, I set this B-hag a big harry audacious goal this year to get my debt paid off It won't happen this year, but I put a crazy big dent in it and it's only because of This platform the Aspen Institute has given me Through events and stuff like that that I've done that I've been able to put a big chunk of money away To be able to chip away at it, but it's hard when you Sorry, I can never talk without getting emotional. It happens every time I almost made it It's hard though when you feel like you worked so hard to change your family's legacy and Now the thing that I look at is how the hell is my son gonna go to school? I can't pay for my own school like how how am I gonna do that for him and It just seems really overwhelming and when I look at that interest rate every month and the payment is just Barely covering it. It's so demeaning and It just like why bother I could take that $200 and put it somewhere else Or four or five hundred whatever it is and you can see Impacts in your daily life much quicker So I think that that's where some of that decision-making comes where you know You need to pay it because the interest is in crewing and that's important But also if I put it towards, you know making a memory with my son or whatever like is There more value in that and I think that's where a lot of those decisions are coming in It's not that we're uneducated that we need, you know, somebody to sit in Lecture us on good financial decisions. That's not it It's that there's a whole plate of things that we're trying to juggle and balance and sometimes the memories are Gone was my final semester at the community college and it wasn't to pay for tuition or books or parking or anything like that It was because I was unemployed for three months and I was literally charging everything on my credit card because I didn't have a dollar to my name and so it was to start paying that off and I finally got employed and and I missed a couple of payments on my credit card I communicated to the creditors and credit in my bank and you know, they said it was gonna be fine If I'm gonna make a payment next month, and literally the second day of my new job I needed gas I was on E and I swiped my credit card and it was declined and would you believe that creditors don't care? so I had figured out from that point, but a lot of the expenses of what you're asking You know were non-tuition expenses. They were day-to-day life because you know, we're living paycheck to paycheck I can't get up anymore. I can't do any less sleep. I can't yeah, like there's that's right tapped exactly and so All the expenses they they went for groceries. They went for a car repair, you know car maintenance Every semester I'd have my check-in tonight that come on at the exact same time at the second week into the semester and I'm like damn But to answer your question yet a lot of the loans that I've taken out is just for day-to-day living for myself and my children I Had a hard time I guess I come from a family an immigrant family that has no debt at all and it's because we can't So I think for me I don't have any debt And that's I think what slowed me down to taking one class in one class because I've relied on solely Gaining getting all scholarships to take one class to take two classes to do this work To do my schoolwork and so and all my scholarships that I've got they've been baby ones like a thousand 1500 2000 little baby ones every semester every time that I that I can get one And it all goes to tuition and what's fast but so I've been really lucky and not to have any any debt Thank you all for Sharing your story, I think it's really incredible and give us a lot of thought and I just want to close by Just reset just rephrasing what let's just let's leave just that before like the conversation may end now But it's not gonna end like it's not gonna Really ends give us a lot of thought Think about what how how we should do to help our students better and Just once more time. Thanks all our panelists for coming. I know a lot of you have to travel For this event. So thank you and thank you our team at New America You guys are amazing to put this work together our partner and ORC and the gay foundation for funding this work And thanks to all for coming