Academia

This is the best summary I could come up with:

But there in the Imperial Valley of southeast California, I forged ahead as a full-time night student, picking up what wages I could during the day.

After transferring to San Diego State University’s Imperial Valley Campus, I earned my bachelor’s in psychology among scattered trailers and temporary classrooms.

Like an arduous hike from a valley up to a mountain summit with a beautiful vista, that first-generation diploma changed the trajectory of my family.

“Jobs for people without college degrees that pay over $130,000 a year make up 1 percent of the American economy,” Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce, recently told CNBC.

I was the only one in my group of friends at my high school who refused to listen to the guidance counselor who told me that college was “not for me.” From a recent New York Timespodcast episode to a much-cited Gallup poll showing a drop in Americans’ confidence in higher education, too many students from marginalized communities are hearing the continual drumbeat of the same message I heard decades ago.

We know that a college degree leads to better health outcomes, a more engaged and responsible citizenry, that we collectively generate more tax revenue, that we become life-long learners, that our families and our communities are transformed, and that we have more control over our careers.

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