How Colleges Tell Student-Parents They Don’t Belong
America’s higher-education system is designed for childless students who come to college right out of high school, and full of unnecessary obstacles for parents seeking a degree.
Over the past five years, Yoslin Amaya would return home most days in the early-morning hours from her night shift as a janitor to her in-laws’ house in Rockville, Maryland, where she lived in a bedroom with her husband and two sons, Andrew and James. Though she was often exhausted, her long days were not over. While her family slept, she would crack open a laptop to finish assignments for her classes, first at Montgomery College, and later at the University of Maryland. She was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in government and politics with a minor in public leadership. Her dream: to one day “be on Capitol Hill, making decisions about what bills get passed or not.
