The Impact of Words

It is really strange the things that your mind choses to remember and what it decides to either get rid of or lock in a box in the very far back dusty corner. As most of you know, I work at a Community College and like all higher education institutions there is a big focus here on access, retention, and success of students. One of the nice things about the place that I work is that we are an “open access” institution and in most cases, Community Colleges tend to be “open access.” Essentially what open access means is that anyone could come here for school. There are still minimum requirements and we still have an admissions team that reviews all of our applications and makes sure students have the proper identification/paperwork/course credit that they need to have in order to enroll, but we don’t turn you away because you have a GED instead of a H.S. Diploma, or because you weren’t a straight A student, or didn’t have a perfect score on the ACT, or because of your background-educational, social, or economic. Where I work is a place that wants to give students the opportunity to be successful even if they never thought that a College degree or certification is something they would ever receive.

So back to that funny thing that minds choose to remember. It has been almost 13 years since I was in the process of applying to Colleges and Universities. For me, it was never a question of going to College or University, it was where would I go and could I get scholarships for it. I recognize that this last statement shows how much privilege I had as a high school junior/senior and how much I still have today. I had two parents with college degrees who had always encouraged me to learn. I don’t think I ever had a conversation with them about not going to college, or doing something for a career that wouldn’t require a college degree. I do know that I had several conversations with them about not wanting to go to the University of Tennessee and how I would only go there kicking and screaming (and yes, I now realize the irony in these conversations). I didn’t really spend any time while I was a junior or senior thinking about the other students in my graduating class who might not have had supportive parents like I did, or who might have been first generation college students, or who didn’t want anything to do with college because they had a different career path. For me, and my group of privileged friends, our conversations were about where we were planning to go, what we thought our major would be, and what “dorm” we would live in.

What I did spend time thinking about was how College would be paid for, especially since my top two schools were small private Presbyterian Colleges with very high price tags. Even though my parents both have College degrees and were incredibly supportive throughout the process, they went to school in Scotland and the higher education system in Scotland at the time that my parents went to school was very different from the American higher education system. There were certain things my parents didn’t understand. First and foremost being the fact that everyone had to pay for College. Then you get into things like the FAFSA which can be a total different language for students and their parents. Not to mention things that take place on college campuses like Greek Life. So even though I have parents with degrees, a lot of the requirements for admission into College was new to all three of us. You also have to think that my parents moved to the US in 1995 less than 10 years before I would start college, so they didn’t have the saving accounts set aside from the time I was born specifically for College like some families have the ability to do. I knew that if I wanted to go to one of my top two schools that I would need to find a scholarship. So I looked and found some but the financial aid packages offered to me by my top two schools couldn’t compare with how much it would cost me to go to UT.

When it became clear that I was more than likely going to end up at UT for school, I started to think about how to go about getting scholarships there. I knew I wanted to live on campus, even though I could have lived at home since campus was only a 20 minute drive from my parents’ house and I wanted to be involved so I figured the less expensive UT was the more I could do. I remember clearly, the day that counselors from UT came to my high school to talk to us about the admissions process, financial aid, and campus life. Since probably half of my graduating class ended up at UT everyone was really excited about these meetings and learning more about the transition from high school to college. We had the opportunity to hear information and then ask questions of these “all-knowing” college counselors. So, still being focused on paying for school/having extra money for fun things, I decided to ask the counselor what the process was to apply for scholarships. The response I got was not at all what I expected. I was told, as was everyone else in that room with me, that unless we had a 3.75 GPA or above, that it wasn’t even worth our time to apply for the scholarships offered by UT. I can’t remember what my high school GPA was, but I know for sure it wasn’t the number that the college counselor said that day. I felt totally defeated. Before I had even started applying for scholarships at UT, I was basically told I wouldn’t get a school scholarship.

Even with that message, I was still really lucky. I got the Tennessee HOPE scholarship and my mum got a tuition discount for me because she was a Knox County teacher, oh and my parents had been able to save some money to help with school costs. But reflecting back, I wonder about the other students who were in the room with me and heard that same message. What other students felt defeated, or felt as though they weren’t good enough for UT when they were told not even to waste their time applying for a scholarship? Were there any students who took that message and decided not even to apply to UT, or worse, to not apply to any schools because they didn’t think they could get financial aid? I’m sure the counselor who shared that doesn’t remember that conversation and never thought about the impact that conversation could have had on a high school senior- especially one that was on the fence about whether or not college was for them.

Fast forward 13 years and I am sure there are still students who are hearing messages like the one we heard when I was a senior. There are probably well-intentioned professionals, parents, and peers who say something that ends up deflating the excitement or hope that a student has. So what are we doing to help students? Are we reinforcing that if a College education is something that they want, that they have the opportunity to obtain a degree? And how are we treating our friends, students, and children who tell us that college isn’t for them? There are a lot of options that don’t require a degree, or that a vocational certification can open doors for. College and Universities need to be more aware of the message they are sending in every form, which includes those individual counselors and recruitment officers who speak to students one on one. My job, and the job of Colleges and Universities is to help students be successful and get them on the path to their future career. Sending messages that detract from the opportunity of success won’t help our schools get more students, rather more students will think that college isn’t for them. So next time you are talking to a high school student, or even someone younger than that, think about the message you are sending and think about how that message could be perceived in terms of their future successes. We all have the opportunity to help others be successful, so instead of locking doors before they can be opened, let’s work on keeping them open and offering multiple doors to choose from.