Speaker 1: 0:10

Welcome to Make the Leap, a podcast focused on the many economic hurdles facing college students, lower income individuals and those striving to move up the social ladder. I am Brad Constant, here with George Graup and Kristen Beal. George, let's start with you. What is our topic for today?

Speaker 2: 0:32

All right, thank you, brad. So today we're going to talk about education and education as a factor when it comes to social change. I think most Americans agree that education is the main gateway for many people to get access to better job, better opportunities. I think most Americans would also agree that all kids deserve that opportunity. And then there is a general belief, I think, in our country that America is a land of opportunity. The data, though, sometimes suggests otherwise.

Speaker 2: 1:07

Many kids really struggle. Many low-income children considerably have a difficult time obtaining good careers, high-paying job, decent-paying job. In adulthood, less than 1 in 13 children that are born into poverty in the US will go to hold a decent-paying job. That are born into poverty in the US will go to hold a decent paying job. You know, the odds are even more difficult if you happen to be a black man, where it is one out of 40 to have access to a decent job. So this topic isn't new to us. We've spent considerable time on this podcast dealing with the challenges that many people in poverty deal with day in and day out as they try to fight their way out of poverty. So that's our topic today.

Speaker 1: 1:47

Thanks, george. This is a topic that's near and dear to the Ross mission, so I'm excited to talk about it Now. Before we introduce our guest, I'm excited to introduce our new fellow host, kristen Beal George and I loved talking with her so much that we decided to bring her on and have her join us as a co-host. Kristen, thanks for joining us as a host.

Speaker 3: 2:06

Oh gosh, thank you. I'm so excited to be part of the podcast as a host.

Speaker 1: 2:10

Awesome. So who do we have the pleasure of chatting with today?

Speaker 3: 2:14

We have Renice. Renice has been with Ross for over 10 years, working both in admissions and currently as a student services director. She's passionate about student success and social mobility and the role of education in that. Fun fact, she also has a small podcast that she does with her sister called hey Sis a Girl Talk podcast. Renise, thanks for joining us today. How?

Speaker 4: 2:40

are you? Thank you so much, Kristen. I'm well. Congratulations on joining Brad and George. That's amazing. I am so excited to be here with you guys today.

Speaker 2: 2:51

All right, so we'll start with the kind of the baseline question, renice, you know, how does education bring about social change? And maybe talk about your own personal experiences along the way.

Speaker 4: 3:04

Absolutely. Education provides opportunities that otherwise would not be available to two of the social groups that I personally belong to. I'm a Black woman right, and historically women and people of color didn't have formal education readily available to them prior to the women's rights movement and the emancipation of African-Americans. So education provides a chance for the underserved, even with the caste system honestly still being in place and operational, so it helps us to be able to provide for ourselves and our families.

Speaker 2: 3:39

So one of the things that I was debating about a title for this podcast, and I just I called it. I think I sent it to Brad this morning. It says education for social change. Is money the fix or, I'm sorry, is money the curse or the cure? And one of the issues as we talk through this and I'm going to maybe start it right off the bat especially in terms of education, but you can probably take it across the board, like healthcare or other really key, important issues but one of the areas I've always kind of looked at is the GI Bill and I want to just kind of put some context around it and maybe give you a little bit of a opportunity to weigh in.

Speaker 2: 4:17

You know, in World War I, when the US soldiers came home, there was really nothing for them to do. They were promised a bonus. They never got the bonus, so they kind of marched on DC trying to collect their money. Government at that point called the army to come out and try to slow their march or deal with them. Fast forward that to World War II.

Speaker 2: 4:38

9 million soldiers come home and the government at that point thinks well, let's do something for them in terms of jobs, in terms of education, in terms of housing, in terms of health care, and it was probably one of the more expansive thing. The government viewed helping them as a public good. It was no longer. You know we're doing this because of this. It did it from a very selfish reason, which is we are better off with these soldiers coming home to have jobs, have training. You didn't want 9 million people walking around with nothing to do right. So, as you think about what you just said two minutes ago and we talk about money and lack of money, is money good or bad? And I have a few more opinions on this. Is it, from your end of it, like education a public good, or is education something that needs to be in the marketplace?

Speaker 4: 5:46

I believe that education is a public good. I come from a family of educators, actually, and so that is our way to give back to our communities and in service, being able to offer something that can help someone better themselves is most certainly. It's a human right. We all come out naturally as we're born as explorers. We are here to learn. It's instinctively in us. So, yeah, it's definitely something that should be available and not something for the marketplace. We all have the right to increase our knowledge base.

Speaker 3: 6:26

I wanted to ask a question. Access to this quality education has historically been unequal, perpetuating these existing social hierarchies and, I think, really limiting social mobility. What steps do you envision that could be taken to address equal access to quality education?

Speaker 4: 6:48

More people with Georgia's vision. Those who have the actual access and the ability to provide the education have to have the vision to give it to those who are in need of it.

Speaker 3: 7:02

And perhaps even remove the barriers to that as well. From someone like George's perspective, it's easier.

Speaker 2: 7:10

I mean, there's an element to this that most people agree to, which is like we want our kids, regardless of their background, regardless of their color, to have good education. I think the disagreement sometimes is how do we do that Like, how do we accomplish getting access and I know sometimes this gets into, you know, a little bit of a some maybe political discussions compared to school system or K through 12 in I don't know, you're in the Detroit area, we'll say maybe like West Bloomfield Hills or whatever town you want to use. You know this is not really the same educational opportunity. It's like a two fully blown separate system. How do we manage through that?

Speaker 4: 8:01

That's a tough question, honestly. It's going to take the breaking of the system, honestly, and again, it's going to come from those decision makers. We do have some charter systems that are popping up and being created that can provide alternative education for families that do live in inner cities like Detroit and other areas where public education just is not where it should be.

Speaker 2: 8:26

What drives that Like? I mean, if you look in terms of public school system in Detroit, what do you think inherently puts it at a disadvantage? Is it lack of resources? What do you think the biggest factor that makes it so difficult to provide kids in this neighborhood a good school?

Speaker 4: 8:48

There is a lot of emphasis placed on standardized testing. Still, there's a lot of emphasis placed on attendance requirements being met, student populations being held and administrators are, of course, wanting to hold to those metrics so that they can be seen as successful. And that is kind of pushing through the cycle where less qualified teachers are put in classrooms, where lower socioeconomic communities are served, and there is honestly a thought process because I've worked in some of these school systems that these kids are not used to anything other than this. So it's okay to perpetuate this in an educational institution. And again, those in power have to start having these conversations and be willing to really take a deep look at what education looks like now versus what it looked like 20, 30, 40 years ago.

Speaker 2: 9:49

I know these topics are hard, but what do you think in terms of parents being in control of where their kids go to school, you know, versus school system that are set up by boundaries artificial boundaries sometimes that is limited by, you know, geography, resources or whatever I mean? What's your thought about, you know, if I don't want my kid to go to school, I should be able to take him to whatever other school I want to take it to.

Speaker 4: 10:15

So I am that parent. My son grew up in the city of Detroit until high school and I sent him to a charter school that I had to drive 45 miles, 45 minutes away from our home, because I wanted my child to have a quality education and I feel like that should be every parent's choice.

Speaker 3: 10:35

How do you feel, Renice, about? I heard you talk about funding and about the resources that go to the public schools, for example, but talk to me a little bit about improving college readiness. So if we have a group of a population that is focusing on their mobility and the future, what kind of ways can we empower public schools to work on that?

Speaker 4: 11:01

I think providing the understanding that education is no longer just teaching in a classroom right, it's a whole social, holistic thing, that we have to meet each person individually where they're at and really be able to gauge that right where that individual student is, so that you can help them to make the steps for success make the steps for success.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Up until now I've heard some key words that really lit the light bulb in my head. You said cycle multiple times. I have an interesting stat here. It's kind of heartbreaking, but over one in three children born around 1980 in the US who grew up in households with incomes near or below the poverty line remained in low-income households when they were in their 30s. That is just the cycle of intergenerational poverty. How does education impact intergenerational poverty? And then a follow-up is can higher education and vocational training, like we provide here at Ross, can that improve the chances of upward mobility? Absolutely.

Speaker 4: 12:00

Ross has a unique approach to education where we are able to meet each individual student, and I think that's what's going to be needed moving forward for other educational institutions, and I do believe holistic learning is becoming a more trend.

Speaker 4: 12:15

My sister works for one of the universities here in Michigan and she's going to conferences about holistic education and being able to have inclusivity in classrooms and on campus.

Speaker 4: 12:27

So I do believe that education is definitely a key factor to breaking intergenerational poverty. But one of the things that's going to have to take place, and one of the barriers that we see here, even at Ross, is when you have a student who comes from a family where education has not been a priority, it can honestly be seen as something negative. So a lot of times we're having to get to the parents just to be able to help the students. I've had to have many conversations especially when I was in admissions, with parents to help them to understand that this is something that can help your child not be in the space that you were in when you were their age, and that's a hard conversation to have with a parent, and so Ross has an approach that makes education a lot less intimidating, because a lot of times, especially if you, in your educational journey, have been someone who's been told you can't do this or there are limits to what you can do, education becomes something that really is scary and can bring on anxiety.

Speaker 3: 13:32

I wanted to extend this same topic because I'm training today a new person in admissions and one of the things that we begin with in that first week of training focuses on having a conversation about the career or the end game where their sights are on. When we first start talking to them and one of the things I explained to this person is about you may be the very first person that has ever gotten that student to verbalize what the outcome is that they hope to attain, to give them a commitment enough to complete it and begin working in that career. So how can we start that conversation sooner, Like in schools? Is that through career counseling at the high school level? Or what kind of ways can we begin that conversation earlier?

Speaker 4: 14:25

Honestly, I think it should start immediately when a child is in school. From preschool on, the messaging should be you can do whatever you want to do. You can be who you want to be. Your future is your future. So it needs to start. Those conversations need to start as early as possible and that messaging needs to be consistent.

Speaker 2: 14:47

You know I started the conversation, you know, talking about getting out of poverty, making, getting through college, getting a college degree, making money.

Speaker 2: 14:57

And I think you've spent time talking about the different part of education, the transformative part of education, which is believe in yourself, dream big, think of the big ideas that you have for your future. Be around people who think differently, who are going to give you a networking opportunity that will instill some of that confidence and some of that feeling better about yourself and about your future. And I think that's the point that people sometimes mess when we trap our students in a box or students from low poverty, from low income area. We trap them in a box and they don't get exposed to these ideas or they don't expose to a different group of people, different group of thoughts. But it's not easy to ask people to dream big, renice right, like I've had students who would say, if I tell my husband I'm going to school, he's going to take the car away from me and so how do? How do we, how do we get that message out that it's okay to strive for success, to think about yourself and have bigger dream for yourself?

Speaker 4: 15:59

I have these conversations daily, on a daily basis. It's unfortunate, but it's true. A lot of times, when a student finds themselves in a mindset of wanting to do better and actually taking those steps, those around them do things that will create barriers, and so when I sit a student down, of course I take in and I receive everything that's going on right who the challenges are, who is not their cheerleader, and that they expected to be their cheerleader, right. And then I remind them that no one, no matter what role they play in your life, gets to decide what your journey looks like, whether it's a husband, whether it's a parent, whether it's a sibling or a friend. We are all individual human beings and we all get to decide who we are. We are not who someone else says we are. We are who we say we are. So changing that inner dialogue.

Speaker 2: 16:54

And the flip side of that, maybe not necessarily the other side of that why do they sometimes, or you or other students at Ross, feel alone Like what's the driver, where they think they're fighting an uphill battle Society?

Speaker 4: 17:09

has set it up that way, you know, sometimes just walking outside, it smacks them in the face. Oftentimes our students, you know, are lacking things that we take for granted Right, and so life is constantly telling them you can't do this, you don't deserve this, and they have to make sure that they can commit to this for themselves.

Speaker 2: 17:34

Do you think we make it just simply harder for them? There's like, like it's. It's it takes a mountain of paperwork to get snap right, to get a, to get assistance. It's like you have to prove that you're poor. Like, well, you know, the IRS got all my data. Why do I have to prove that I am poor, you know? I mean, do you think we just like, put them through a process where we just suck humanity out of them? Absolutely.

Speaker 4: 17:58

And I think that's intentional.

Speaker 4: 18:00

I think that's the way the system is set up. It is set up to make it challenging for you to get to this thing, that now we've convinced you that you need to survive and I'm going to make sure that you continue to have to jump through hoops, to continue the support to the point where you feel as if this is the only support I'll ever get. I've gone through all of this. I might as well stick this route out. I might as well stick this route out and a lot of the stories that I hear from my students and conversations. I have to take a five minute break after while I've kept on you know the good face and I've smiled and I've encouraged and I've empathized. It breaks my heart. So things that have become normalized for our students and they can just say in a very flippant way I think all of that is because it started out with them being in a system that had them work hard to prove that they were less than so maybe the second part of the podcast we talk about, maybe potential solutions.

Speaker 2: 19:00

You know what are the things that we can do. You know again, I started to talk about money. What are things that we can do. You know again I started to talk about money. So the US spends the most amount of money on education, beyond a small country in Europe called Luxembourg. So we are the highest spending almost $20,000 per student per year that we spend on education. Where does that money go Like? When I look at it? And we spend 6.6% of our GDP on education. So we clearly put a lot of money and effort, but many of the schools that are serving low-income students do not have anywhere near the resources that other schools have. How can you fix this if one school has two to three times the resources of the school that is across the street?

Speaker 4: 19:52

I think one of those solutions is breaking down that barrier and allowing parents to choose where their students go to school, because it is obvious, like you said, the funding is going to the West Bloomfields, the, you know, the East Point schools and those higher tax bracket communities. Right, that's where the funding is going, and so allowing parents to be able to select what school and what school district that their students can attend will help to break some of that. And I will continue to say, the decision makers nothing is going to change until those who make the decisions change the way that they make those choices.

Speaker 2: 20:31

What do you say to somebody who would say I can't do the 45 minute drive? You know I cannot take my kid to a school in a safer neighborhood. I got to take two buses to go to work. Why shouldn't I have a safe, good school in my neighborhood, like the people across the street?

Speaker 4: 21:06

that's a great question, george um, but I will start with this. What I would say to that parent who and that's a viable response, right I cannot drive my child 45 minutes away to go to school. I can't afford that transportation and what that looks like. That is absolutely reasonable. To that parent I would say okay, then I need you to do your due diligence with supplemental education. There are programs out there. Technology has provided a wealth of information. By the time my child was in high school, he was in like college level courses. I was lost in his math classes. I utilized the internet and every resource I could find. There are free programs out there. So I would just say utilize the resources that you can find in an area that is conducive to what you need right For your lifestyle, for your family.

Speaker 3: 22:00

But it's going to take more than just sending them to school, for your lifestyle, for your family, but it's going to take more than just sending them to school.

Speaker 3: 22:11

The admissions team is just it's starting an admissions blog and it's really to focus on sharing expertise and real life experiences on how to improve customer service to our students on that front end, and one of the pieces that well, the very first post in that blog is about the decision-making process for the adult student, and I think this is really appropriate here.

Speaker 3: 22:32

Is that skill or the ability to walk through and make a decision about number one what kind of career do you want? But also, what can I do? That is the best solution for me and right where I am right now. So is that driving the 45 miles to drop my kid off or is that finding other resources that are available, but to do the very best that you can and, of course, being accountable and responsible for it? I hear you talking about that and I think is that something that can also be done or included in social, emotional skill building and curriculums like those state standards that require that? I mean, I see it invaluable, but maybe my learning experience was different. I didn't learn that stuff till I was in my 40s, really.

Speaker 4: 23:19

So you know, absolutely, kristen. I honestly think that that's one of the reasons that inability or not understanding of self right, when you're in a certain lifestyle and in a certain cultural group there is actually a lot of cultural groups, right. Assimilation can be a part of our society, right, and whatever group you are in, right. And so a lack of self, unfortunately, or knowledge of self, is one of those things that does come. That, I found, was working with lower socioeconomic students and families. So that is why we do have students who have gone to seven different schools, right, why we have unusual enrollment history, because they don't even have the understanding that I don't know myself enough to even ask myself what's going to work best for me. College is college, right. School is school. Who's ever asked me what type of learner I am?

Speaker 2: 24:20

So how about I give that a try, like what works best for them? And this is not necessarily because I've walked in their shoes, but this is just because I've been in education for so long and I've seen so many sides of it. But here's my shot. Let me take my shot at this. You know, education should be a public good. It shouldn't be driven by who has more money, who has bigger house, who's got the bigger tax base.

Speaker 2: 24:48

Small classes matter. If you allow these kids to go to school with a limited number of students per teacher, it literally makes a difference. Whether you're teaching five makes a huge difference. If you're teaching 22, right Access to special ed really makes a difference. It is like asking teachers sometimes to do something with one hand tied behind their back. So I think the parents have a responsibility, but that responsibility becomes very, very difficult if they got to climb a mountain every day to try to get their kids when somebody similar to them doesn't have to do that right. Get their kids when, when somebody similar to them doesn't have to do that right, they can just walk their kid, walk their kid to school. And so I think there are elements that, as as a society, that we can do to make it easier, and it's really starts with providing that.

Speaker 2: 25:56

You talked about it earlier a little bit of a? A. We take this very draconian approach to holding student back, you know, trying to keep them, and then suddenly you're six, seven inches taller than the kids next to you. All of this stuff has an impact that if you don't deal with it, regardless of what that parent does, it's a lose-lose. I shared that statistics, I think, on our last time, I think on Saturday. I think on our last time, I think on Saturday. If you're a kid with bad grades and your parents are rich, you have a 70% chance to graduate college and make money, and if you're a kid from a poor family with great grades, you have 30% chance to graduate college and make a good living. Those are not good odds, you know if you live in poverty.

Speaker 4: 26:47

Absolutely.

Speaker 4: 26:48

When you made that statement, that's when you caught my attention I was like, okay, george has got me, because you understood, like you got it and you made it clear that our mission is to bridge that gap.

Speaker 4: 27:02

You're absolutely right, and that is a high mountain to climb. It is going to take for parents to be educated, for school systems to be willing to make adjustments to the way that they are providing educations, for state educational departments to be able to provide resources equally amongst all of the districts. So there's a lot of different steps and a lot of different things in play that it will take to really, really really create equality in education. But I think that in reality, right now, today, what a parent can do is just really take their child's education into their own hands. But the challenge comes when you are talking about intergenerational poverty or a family that has not made education a priority is that the parent may want that for their child and again, they have no idea how to know, no idea how to advocate or who to advocate to. So I think that maybe we need some more additional educational opportunities available to parents of young kids to help them to provide additional support to their children.

Speaker 3: 28:17

I have seen research, but it's been quite a while since I investigated this, but it was looking at after-school programs for K-12 that are not. They're on community building, but they're focused on the parents and the family as a group instead of just the student. So the student is not responsible for passing or failing. The family is responsible for each making their contribution to support the success of their child and student to succeed.

Speaker 2: 28:48

But let me argue that point though. So if my parents are screwed up and I'll use me personally do I have to be screwed up as well? Right, I mean sometimes when we make that argument that we got to get the parents to a certain level, like my parents have always wanted better for me than for them. But if they're totally, totally messed up, does that mean now I have to be also totally messed up? And I think that's really where I take issue. Like I think we have an obligation to help these kids break that intergenerational poverty and not just say, hey, you know, your parents got to do this and we'll do this. What if the parents doesn't want to do this? Then what happened to that kid? They're totally screwed and they have no opportunity.

Speaker 2: 29:32

Like, I am all for longer days, I'm all for longer school year. I think all that makes sense, but I am more on the providing the kid, when they're in school, a small class size, mentoring, one-on-one tutoring, access to special education programs, because you just can't depend that the parent, who's doing two jobs or is could be a drug user, could be single mom that's doing 16 different things trying to keep her family afloat. Now she's got to also become semi-teacher. I don't know. I think that's just the bridge too far.

Speaker 4: 30:11

And I can receive that argument. I was formerly a single mother, so I know what it is like to be a single mom, working two jobs to provide for my child. But I also know that as someone who wants better for your child, right. I too came from a family my parents wanted better for me than they had and I want the same for my child. But I understand that that's going to also take some work for me.

Speaker 4: 30:34

There has to be some accountability for that child's success. It can't be left all the way up to the educational institution and then if you have a student who has gone through and hasn't gotten that support in their educational environments, that's where programs like Ross come into play, because then we're getting the adult learner that we are able to kind of take into our fold and we can kind of help them navigate through this new journey. But we all need support and typically we search for it from our family unit. So I think that it is important that families do play a key role in success for our students, especially when they're in the lower grades.

Speaker 2: 31:10

I'm not going to go back and forth, but I am going to go back and forth on this one. I think if you have a supportive family, you hit the jackpot. If you have a supportive mom who's willing to juggle multiple jobs, I think God bless you. You're doing all that you can.

Speaker 2: 31:27

In the 1990s we put a million black men in jail. You know these kids are growing up in a very, very challenging, difficult environment. The argument is that just because the parents are uninvolved or they're going to neglect their child, that the kid has to repeat the history of the parents, that they are condemned to follow the route of the mom or the dad or whatever it is. And I do believe that schools have a role to play, even for the kids that do not have the family support and they do not have the stability at home because otherwise they have no shot. I mean they've got zero. They already have, like I said, the one out of 40, what's that like two and a half percent? I mean, if you are a young black boy, the odds are so stacked up against you to begin with, and the single, the family unit, might be there, but it might not be there. And if it's not there, you're screwed.

Speaker 4: 32:30

No, you're right, because I do recognize that school is oftentimes a safe space for students. I really do. I know that sometimes it's where they get their meals, it's where they have someone say kind words to them. They get their meals it's where they have someone say kind words to them. It's the one consistent thing, right, because a lot of times families are very transient and they move a lot and things are not stable. So I do understand that. No, I do embrace that school can definitely be a safe space for our students.

Speaker 1: 32:59

So I'm going to jump in and provide a little bit different lens into this. So my wife has been a teacher up until we had triplets. She taught three years interstate Detroit in a charter and then we moved and she taught 10 years, fourth grade. With that. There is points for both sides of this argument here. When you look at it from the teacher perspective, or from my perspective as the spouse of the teacher, seeing how all of these classrooms are way too big. There are parents who are engaged. There are parents who are not engaged.

Speaker 1: 33:27

Maybe I'm playing peacemaker here. There is a need for the parents being involved, but we also have to get the funding to be more equal, because my wife, her smallest class, was 29 students and that was a breeze compared to 32 or 33. And she was seeing students with parents who were highly engaged. These are the students who now are graduating and they're getting, you know, accepted to the college of their choice. There's also the students who are not getting any parent support, in which, thankfully, in that district there was the structure to come in and support the student, but that's not something that happens. In that district there was the structure to come in and support the student, but that's not something that happens in every district.

Speaker 2: 34:06

But I am all for family support, like I'm not saying necessarily that it doesn't matter, it absolutely matters, but it matters normally because either you have the resources or you have the parent that is willing to do it. But then there is a segment of our kids who do not have a willing parent or the parent doesn't have the resources, and that's really where I think we still have that responsibility to provide the best effort possible, which is small classrooms, one-on-one tutoring, one-on-one help, special ed access, longer school days, longer school year, to provide these kids the opportunity to play catch up, because they've got a long climb ahead of them. And I don't necessarily know how you would.

Speaker 4: 34:56

If you wait on some parents, you're never going to get there, and I see it every day while they're trying to do two jobs or whatever they need to do to just keep food on the table yeah, and I see that, I do see your argument now that there is that, that's that group of students who, you're right, do not have a parent or a guardian that is either willing or able to even start the process of learning how to advocate. And that is where, yeah, you're right, we would need the schools themselves to step in and provide that support to students who did not have any type of support readily available, whether it was because the parent was unwilling or unable.

Speaker 2: 35:51

So yeah, I do see that argument. When you're getting a small classroom, when you're getting tutoring, when you're getting mentoring, when you're getting help when you need it, at least you give these kids slightly better odds than being one out of 29. I don't know it really. Healthcare and education we have two separate systems and we can say anything we want to say. We can deny it, we can say no, we're in a land of opportunity. There's no data that says we're a land of opportunity. We're a land of opportunity for some, but not for others.

Speaker 3: 36:22

My perspective is both of those systems operate in the from the negative perspective many times. I mean, I really think that that vision needs to be changed, because we only approve tests and health care that are are paid for, compensated for by insurance companies. Not necessarily what's right, maybe perhaps for the patient or in school, we know we give them all equal instruction and we have a teacher, that all the teachers have been trained the same, but, um again, they live in this neighborhood so we don't have a good tax base. So you know, it all comes seems to come from the negative instead of the optimistic or the positive side.

Speaker 2: 37:07

Because because we monetize education and we monetize health care Right. So now we put a value on good education which costs X amount of dollars, and we immediately exclude everybody else that can't afford it. And that's the hard, that's the challenge of being in this industry for so long. I started my first job at a private school. That was mostly for rich kids who wanted to go skiing, so going to college for them was really not a big deal. It was just dad wrote the check and all was good, or mom, I guess, wrote the check and all is good. And then you land for a while in the for-profit sector and you're like you know this looks completely different. They have no money, no resources, no nothing. And it really kind of hits you in the face that we basically now have put a price tag on good education and good health care. If you can afford it, you're good, If you can't afford it, good luck.

Speaker 4: 38:05

Absolutely. One of the things that my sister and I have been talking about here lately is that we have the heart for the people, but the industry that we are in has now been converted into big business. Education is big business at this point right, and it's probably one of the more profitable businesses in the US. If I'm being honest, that's going to be a hard cycle to break. You're talking about big money for those who are getting it right now. People don't want to let go of their comfort. So again, like I said earlier, what will change actually look like, and I think that's why there's hesitation to actually make real progress.

Speaker 2: 38:46

Well, I don't necessarily see any progress till the elementary school and the K through 12s fixed. Like you know, till we give these kids a fair chance, they're they're always there there's. I will wrap this up because this has been on such a negative tone podcast. Sorry about it, but there was a movie way back called um waiting for Superman. It was about this group of charter schools. I think one was in New York, was in DC about these parents trying to get their kids and they sit there in a lottery. They're waiting for their kids to get into the school.

Speaker 2: 39:20

I don't care what political side you come from If you don't watch that movie and start to cry because you're watching these parents on the edge of their seat just praying for their kids to get selected in that lottery so they can get pulled out of that school that he's in and go to a school that they wanted to get in. It literally breaks your heart that this is what parents have to go to to get their kids in a safer school, in a better school. It truly breaks your heart. Renice, I know we went all over the place here, but thank you for doing this.

Speaker 4: 39:55

I know we went all over the place here, but thank you for doing this. I really enjoyed this conversation and conversations like these are so needed. I thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk with you guys today. This was awesome, even though you're right, it was a little negative, but it's a hard conversation to have. Yeah, I think we did a great job of showing all sides of it and we kept it as positive as a hard conversation can be.

Speaker 1: 40:35

Well, thank you. So platform of your choice to listen to past episodes, as well as subscribe, so you never miss a future episode. We hope you join us two weeks from now for our next episode as we discuss punishing the poor, navigating the financial aid process for low-income students. See you then, thank you.