Conflicting thoughts all around on this.
I am an Amarillo College graduate. All my classes transferred to A&M, no questions asked, because A&M and AC had an agreement. AC classes in engineering were difficult enough to meet the standards A&M required.
I went there because my family in no way could afford to pay for me to live somewhere else like College Station or Lubbock, much less pay for university. My dad had been out of work since I was in the 7th grade, and my mom was nothing more than an administrative assistant.
I live at home. I worked 30-40 hours a week at McDonald's. I went to school year round. It took me three years to get through.
I earned a Sybil B. Harrignton Scholarship that was enough to pay for my tuition and fees for the first two years at a public university. My dad, literally the week before, had finally been hired for a full time postman position. I could have a roof over my head.
Things fell into place for me, blessings that I will never forget, nor be able to repay.
As far as I know, none of these services were around when I was there. Maybe they were in a smaller degree.
Reading about the people in this article, especially Alicia, definitely tugs at my heart strings. I hate that she is struggling. She's made a great decision to try and make her life better. She's a step ahead of many in poverty.
However, when you read the whole article, and take in the background, you see how both her, and her husband, set themselves up for failure in the beginning by making bad decisions when young.
6 kids for her, and she has a hard time feeding them. Might should have thought about that before having more.
Felony conviction for the father.
They have enough money for a TV and video games for the kids, but not food?
They have some beans, but the kids don't like beans so she isn't going to serve them? I guess the kids aren't hungry enough then. I didn't like my grandmother's pinto beans, but I damn sure ate them when they were put on my plate.
I fully believe in second chances for people that are trying, but the struggles they are having are part and parcel of a larger cultural problem that needs to be solved. I doubt they had good role models themselves, but if only they had made better decisions when young.
Sigh. Generation improvement is the only answer. It's how my family did it. We went from poor ass farm hands in my great-great grandparents generation to my generation being the first to graduate from college.
I'm glad AC is helping people out, and I hope it really does help some, but as you can see by my post above, I'm so conflicted on this whole thing. Then, they also cannot quantitatively prove the benefits of the program:
Quote:
The college can point to students for whom help from the ARC clearly made the difference between dropping out and graduating, including Justin Allen, the single dad who was at the lunch with Pruett and Lowery-Hart. But Witherspoon's efforts to identify a broad impact through data have come up short.
