////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[The Enduring Gap Episode 3: ‘I take head of

household’]

MX CUE 1
[Track1] [Underwriting] The Enduring Gap podcast is made possible by an
Education Writers Association fellowship. EWA fellowships support
ambitious education journalism projects.

[Palo Alto Ambi --birds chirping, wind blowing]

[Track2] In April 2021, I met Katelynn Ibarra [EE-barr-a] on a mostly
deserted college campus to talk about what school was like for her before
the pandemic.
[Ibarra1 5:24

“I spent most of my time here at the Ozuna library. My normal day is I

would have Monday and Wednesday classes Tuesdays and Thursdays.
So, I was full time back then, but face to face.”]
[Track3] She’s in her second year at Palo Alto College, one of San
Antonio’s five community colleges.

[Ibarra1.2

“So, what I would do is like, I would go to my classes, at either like the

buildings here, like that's Brazos. And--I forgot there's the student center
there. So, I didn't like to be in the Student Center, because they're just
eating and they're talking. But it was like really quiet in here. So, I loved it in
here.”]

[Track4] Before the pandemic hit, Ibarra [EE-barr-a] spent most of her time
on campus. But then the world shut down, and her classes moved online.
For a year, the loudest thing on campus was the birds.
[Palo Alto Ambi --birds chirping, wind blowing]
[Track5] Ibarra and her mom both lost their jobs in the early days of the
pandemic. The 20-year-old was able to find another job, but her mother’s
health deteriorated, making it hard for her to work. Her mom has diabetes,
and it damaged nerves in her feet.

[Ibarra2 8:57/ 8:26

“It's hard for her to drive. And then she just has a lot of difficulty — like she
has a lot of stomach issues occasionally. And she can't keep food down.
And sometimes she's really bedridden all day because it’s progressed. The
illness has progressed…so I take head of household to work for my mom
and my brother.”]

MX CUE 2
[Pause. Music transition.]

[Track6] From Texas Public Radio, this is the Enduring Gap, a limited
series exploring some of the reasons more Latinos aren’t earning college
degrees in San Antonio. I’m Camille Phillips.
In this episode, we’re talking about the ways a student’s family can help
them get to college … and the ways the needs of their family sometimes
have to take precedence over earning a degree.

This is episode 3: ‘I take head of household.’

[Music transition fades out.]

[Track7] In the spring of 2021, TPR sent a survey to students who were
currently or recently enrolled in one of San Antonio’s public institutions of
higher education. Ibarra is one of the more than 2600 students who filled
out the survey.
Their responses showed a significant difference between the number of
white students and the number of Latino students who juggle work AND
school to help support their families.
Hispanic students like Ibarra are more likely to be responsible for helping
their family pay the bills.
Ibarra is 20. Her younger brother is a junior in high school. She juggles a
full-time course load and a full-time job with taking care of her mother. I first
spoke with her on the phone.

[Ibarra3 22:40; 22:24-22:39 [only phone tape quote from Ibarra]

“My biggest motivation is just to live comfortably. Never on your last

dollar…. We live with my great aunt …and we only have a tiny room. I
would like to have a higher education to make enough money to have a
livable lifestyle.”]

[Track8] She started working a 9 to 5 job at a call center in October 2020.

[Ibarra4 7:17

“If I'm not on the phone, I have my textbook there. They allow me to have
my textbook on my desk. And I would just like literally read it read it read
it.”]

[Track9] She also drives her mom to the doctor and everywhere else she
needs to go, including the occasional visit to the emergency room. Shortly
before we spoke, her mom broke her toes without realizing it.
[Ibarra5 25:56

“Because she has neuropathy, you can't feel your feet. So, she must have,
like, stubbed them or something… cause she went to the hospital and they
were broken. And I'm like, ‘Oh my god.’ And she doesn't know how
because she can't feel it.”]

[Track10] The switch to virtual learning during the first year of the
pandemic helped her stay in school because she was able to study on her
own schedule.
[Ibarra6 7:53

[Ibarra] “The weekends I do tests and then assignments too, submitting

them.”
[Phillips] “OK, so you can even do tests on your own time?”

[Ibarra] “Yeah. It's either after work and then it’s before work if I wake up
early enough, and then the weekends too.”]
[Track11] For her, the extra work is worth it because she’s determined to
earn a degree.
[Ibarra7 13:09-13:27

“I always wanted to, because I never wanted to just graduate and pop into
the workforce and just look for something, and that’s not something I like.
And the job I want to do is in psychiatry for psychology, so of course I came
to school, because that's the only way to get on that pathway.”]

MX CUE 3
[Track12] After she earns her associate’s degree at Palo Alto, Ibarra plans
to transfer to the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her ultimate goal is to
become a psychiatrist.
But, that doesn’t make the extra responsibility along the way easier to
manage. And, that extra effort can make it less likely for Latino students to
earn a college degree.

[Sansone1 1:18:57 (2021)

“Honestly, it's a privilege to be able to not have to worry about anything but
school. Like that idea about, ‘Oh, no, my son, you know, our daughter,
school is their only job.'”

[Track13] Vanessa Sansone is an assistant professor of education policy

at UTSA.
[Sansone2 1:19:07 (2021)
“That's a privilege, nowadays, a privilege, because it also means that
you're not stressing about anything else, you can completely, you know,
immerse yourself in the college experience, and focus on yourself.
Unfortunately, because of the community communal aspect of, you know,
Black and Brown communities and also Asian communities and Native
American communities that's, that's less likely to happen.”]
[Track14] The privilege of being able to go to college without working is
more about class than race. But then again, race and class are
systemically linked too.
Because Latino families are more likely to find themselves in a tough
financial situation, Sansone says Latino students are more likely to have to
prioritize their families’ immediate needs over the potential payoff of a
college degree a few years down the line.

[Sansone3 1:15:08 (2021)

“You can go and get a welding job, or an oilfield job or a fracking job, or a
trucking job, and make pretty good money, you know, at 18 or 19. You can
join the military. So, when you don't come from money, that looks really
good.”]

[Track15] But, without a college degree, Sansone says their options will be
more limited later in life…and more dependent on the whims of the
economy.
[Sansone5 1:15:55 (2021)

“At some point, they're going to hit a wall in terms of how much money they
can make, even in those particular industries, whereas somebody who
pursues post-secondary education, we know that there's a correlation
between as your education goes up, so does how much money you make
over a lifetime.”
“I also think that it goes back to blue collar jobs, I guess, like with the labor
(intensity), this is also why we see more health issues in Black and Brown
communities. Latinx students have talked about that. They’ve talked about
the fact that their families come from working in unstable industries. So
again, like welding, it’s all contingent on the economics of what’s going on.
That’s not to say that other industries aren’t contingent on economics too.
They are, but they’re more stable.
“Like a teacher position, right? (The) K-12 (school system) is always going
to need teachers. But are we always going to need oil well welders or
fracking, right? Because I'm putting it in the context of South Texas. It
depends, you know. It's unstable. You may have a lot of hours one week
and no hours another week.”]

[Track16] Even if a student’s family can’t afford to support them financially,

emotional support and encouragement goes a long way.
Sansone says students are more likely to enroll in college — and be
successful once they’re there — if they have their families’ support.
[Sansone4 1:26:08 (2021)

“For those who attend that typically tends to be a major factor--is that some
family member was encouraging and supportive of them going. Sometimes
it's a mom and dad; sometimes it's a second cousin. Sometimes it’s a
brother or sister. Sometimes it’s grandma.”]

MX CUE 4
[Music transition]
[Track17] 85% of the students who responded to TPR’s survey said their
parents encouraged them to pursue higher education. And Latino students
were just as likely to have their parents’ support as students of other races,
even though they’re more likely to be the first in their family to go to
college.

Amanda Martinez with the civil rights organization Unidos US says she’s
not surprised most Latino students have their family’s support. She says
family is top of mind for Latino students throughout their college career.

[Martinez1 zoom 20:00; 20:21

“Family is always a part of that decision-making process. And even when

they're enrolled, their family is in the back of their mind so… a part of that
journey for them is managing their family and figuring out how to invest in
themselves, but also kind of redirect money or figure out how to add
additional income to support their family.”]

[Music transition fades out]

[Track18] Family expectations played a major role in Jose Alfaro’s college
story.

The Northwest Vista College student says his parents always expected him
to go to college. His mom is from Slovakia and his dad is from Costa Rica.
They both have post-secondary certifications from their home countries.
[Alfaro1 24:50
“They've just been a huge help to us growing up, going to school and
everything. So, I'd like to be able to pay them back for all of that….and I
know that I'm not going to be able to do that all too well on a delivery
driver’s salary.”]

[Track19] Alfaro is 23. He enrolled at St. Mary’s University in 2015, right

out of high school. But he worked full time at a gas station across the street
from St. Mary’s, and his grades took a hit.
[Alfaro2 8:14

“Everything was super rigorous, super tough and just needed a lot of
studying outside of class, and I just wasn’t ready for that.”]

[Track20] St. Mary’s is one of San Antonio’s private Catholic colleges.

[Alfaro3 9:05
“Working overnights and then having morning classes just didn't really give
me a lot of time to sleep or anything, which probably added to the mess
that was going on.”]

[Track21] He dropped out after his first year and worked as a dispatcher
for a trucking company for several years. But his parents’ expectation that
he earn a college degree eventually pushed him to re-enroll.
[Alfaro4 14:26

“There was just a lot of pressure to do it and I didn't want to disappoint…

and that is one of the things that eventually led to me going back.”]

[Track22] He returned to college in January 2020, enrolling in a community

college first to ease himself back into academics slowly.

[Alfaro5 8:34; 9:16

“(I) managed to get into the mental state where I realized I'll actually have
to study and do more outside of class and stop working full time. And it's
helped a lot…. This time around, I'm just delivering with Uber Eats, so it
really allows me to make my own schedule… If I need extra time to study I
can cut back on how much I'm working.”]
[Track23] Alfaro is the second oldest of five children, and two of his
younger siblings are also in college. While he was out of college, he helped
his family make ends meet. His dad lost his eyesight a few years ago and
had to stop working.

[Alfaro6 20:50
“I was picking up some of the bills to help pay for things at home. I don't
want to say (that) was a huge factor delaying me going back to college, but
when I was doing that, it was 48 hours a week, so I didn't really have time.
But once my sister managed to graduate from college and she started
working, she was able to start helping more with the bills. So that allowed
me to start looking into going back to college.”]
[Track24] Family both delayed Alfaro’s return to college and ensured that
he eventually returned.

By traditional measurements and expectations, the odds he would return to

college were against him. Because he dropped out and transferred to
another school, he won’t be counted in the standard graduation rate. But
when he earns his degree, his success and his family’s pride will be there
all the same.

MX CUE 5
[Track25] A focus group conducted by Unidos US found that Latino
families, especially families who moved to the United States within the last
generation, highly value education.
[Martinez2 zoom 33:17; 33:27

“They view it as a tool…It's a tool and it's a weapon to help protect against
poverty. It's this tool for social and economic mobility.”]

[Track26] Martinez says immigrant parents often come to the United

States so their children can be better off, and they see college as part of
that path. In turn, their children see college as a way to give back to their
families.

[Martinez3 part3 6:30

“There was never a question in their mind, but then once they started the
process, then it was like, ‘Oh wow, as a first time--first generation college
student this is much more difficult than I thought it was going to be.’”]

[Track27] Martinez says Latino students in the Unidos US focus group

were highly motivated and had a lot of encouragement from their parents:
[Martinez4 part3 6:50

“But when it came to the technicalities, they just didn't have the social or
cultural capital, and the institution usually didn't provide the social or
cultural capital, to help them navigate this new system. And so they were
making decisions at the forefront as they’re matriculating all the way
through their higher education journey without much information and kind of
going on it alone.”]
…

MX CUE 6
[Track28] So how can colleges better support students who don’t know
how to navigate the complicated system of choosing classes, accepting
financial aid and all the rest?

The University of Texas at San Antonio and the Alamo Colleges District,
San Antonio’s community college system, have put a lot of focus on
answering that question in the last five to ten years.
Both institutions have ramped up advising and created transfer guides to
help students know what classes to take if they plan on attending UTSA
after earning their associates.

[Music cue 6 fades out]

Tammy Wyatt is UTSA’s vice provost for student success.

[Wyatt1 32:20

“We've taken a very strategic, focused effort to make sure that there aren't
any balls dropped, that all of those resources, all of those approaches are
critical, and that we're all coordinating our efforts to make sure that we're
that there are that our students aren't falling through the through the cracks
or through the gaps.”]
[Track29] All three of San Antonio’s public institutions of higher education
are well aware that a lot of their students are the first in their families to go
to college, and that a lot of their students have to work.

Robert Vela is president of San Antonio College, one of the community

colleges:
[Vela1 24:04

“When you're competing with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, basic needs.

Putting, you know, food on the table or a job will always take kind of priority
for a family, right? So we have made it a really a goal, and really
operationalized the goal, so that we can provide that level of service at
each of our colleges as a district, so that students don't have to make that
choice. They can stay with us, stay engaged, and, and still work or still be
able to get the food that they need for their families.”]

[Track30] UTSA, Texas A&M-San Antonio and the Alamo Colleges District
all have food pantries and other resources to support students with
economic needs.
San Antonio College opened a central location for students to access
emergency resources like food and housing five years ago. The other four
community colleges adopted the idea soon after. The centers employ social
workers and offer mental health services plus emergency grants to pay for
unexpected expenses, like a flat tire.
[Vela2 24:38
“One of the things that, you know, we've been very, very proud of is that
you're better with us than without us. That's kind of our message. Our
students are better with us. And more, I think, financially sound if they are
able to stay with us through this journey.”]

[Track31] Recently, Vela started promoting something he calls micro-

credentials: getting students certificates that can help them get a raise or a
higher paying job along the way to earning an associate’s or bachelor’s
degree.

[Vela3 31:24, 32:32

“We often make the mistake as educators, especially early on, we treated a
career as a destination, right? You want to be an accountant, here's how
you become an accountant. We never treated that as a journey, right, and
in micro-credentialing all the way up to becoming that accountant.”

“I mean, a phlebotomist just simply taking blood, that's a certificate, we can

get--we can start you there, you can go off and become a medical
assistant, then you can become an LPN, then you can become an RN. And
now you can become a BSN out of SAC, right, and that's what our
hospitals are wanting right now, are more BSNs.”]

[Track32] UTSA has a program for first year students, transfer students
and a one stop shop to help students navigate graduation paperwork.
Wyatt says the graduation help desk has helped the university improve its
graduation rate:

[Wyatt2 26:48
“It's a centralized Support Center, with the sole purpose of helping students
resolve roadblocks to graduation. And so, it addresses potential barriers. It
serves as a virtual one stop resource for undergrad students. It helps
students navigate and address institutional barriers, such as course
scheduling, course availability, and access. Also, administrative paperwork,
deadlines, course substitutions, whatever it may be.”]

MX CUE 7
[Track33] But even with all of these new programs, students still
sometimes find it difficult to chart their way through.
UTSA student Deniff Lara says she wouldn’t have made it to UTSA in the
first place if her high school counselor hadn’t helped her fill out the financial
aid application.
[Lara1 (April) 50:29; 49:58
“My mom, she doesn't speak English. So, like, … filling out papers or like
signing things or just the application to, like, apply to colleges and all of
that, I had to just figure it out on my own.”
“I'm a first generation (college student). I knew nothing. Like, I knew
practically nothing of like how to get here. Like how it works. Like, I think,
they had to do all the work for me. Like, I think my counselor did my FAFSA
for me. Like, literally, they did everything and without them, I don't know if I
would have actually made it.”]
[Track34] Lara says she knows UTSA has a lot of resources for students,
but sometimes she has a hard time finding out what resources exist — or
where to go on campus to find them.
Her first semester on campus, she spent weeks scrounging for quarters for
the bus before one of her friends told her UTSA students qualify for a free
bus pass.

[Lara2 18:27
“Like, this is why lack of knowledge really hurts you sometimes. Because I
didn't know. I was paying all these dollars and trying to find quarters and
stuff.”]
…

[Track35] All of the colleges’ programs and initiatives don’t erase the
systemic inequities that make college harder for many Latino students to
navigate in the first place. Those same inequities also make Latino families
more vulnerable to health crises and economic hardship.

That’s a fact that the pandemic has made abundantly clear. And San
Antonio’s Latino college students weren’t spared.

MX CUE 8
[Pause. Music transition.]

[Track36] Coming up on the next episode of the Enduring Gap: the effects
of the pandemic.

[Lara4 42:34; 26:10]

“At a certain point, it was a bit worrisome. Thankfully, we always had at

least rice or beans or something…It hasn't been easy, but I know of a lot of
people that have struggled a lot more.”]
[Track37] We asked students how they were doing during the pandemic —
and how that compared to life before. Were they ever hungry? Are they
able to pay the rent? Have they lost work or had to take a break from
school?
We knew our students were struggling. But we didn’t fully appreciate the
depth of that struggle … or the consequences for their academic futures.

…
[Track38] [Credits:] The Enduring Gap is a production of Texas Public
Radio. This episode was edited by Fernando Ortiz Jr. Jacob Rosati did
sound design. Dan Katz is our news director. I’m Camille Phillips.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////