In Watts, it’s easier being a pregnant teen than a college student
If I were to go pregnant, I would know merely where to go for aid: the local Women, Infants, and Children food and nutrition service offices, Planned Parenthood, and the Family Resource Center are all places where I stood in line for hours as a kid growing up in Watts. But finding local resource for college education is a harder task. I know from feel. As i of the few community higher students in Watts, I can't discover a identify to print out an essay or go college-related communication.
Recently, a friend suggested I become significant instead of aiming for college. "Daughter, the authorities volition have care of you lot, trust me," she told me.
Initially, I thought her thought had many flaws, but she is right that in my customs, at that place is a plethora of resources for young parents, and barely any for college students. One in five births in Watts are to teen mothers, which gives the area the highest rate of teen pregnancy in Los Angeles County, according to Luis Rivera, a programme officer at Starting time 5 LA, a nonprofit bureau that promotes early childhood instruction. And S LA, the area where Watts is located, has by far the highest charge per unit of teen pregnancy in LA Canton. As a result, there are at charter five government assistance programs and nonprofit agencies targeted for mothers my age or younger on my block.
If I had children, I would authorize for subsidized rent for a two- to three-bedchamber apartment in our circuitous. You have to have a low income – and you lot have to accept dependents – to live where we practise. I could also qualify for a Section eight voucher, where the government pays up to 70% of your rent. To me, that's like hitting the lottery. I alive with my grandmother who is going through chemotherapy — and if she passes away, I would likely be kicked out of our complex considering I don't have children.
I know these resources are needed for the survival of single-parent families living in poverty. My own female parent heavily relied on them to care for me and my six siblings, and my grandmother did too. Only I also see that these regime assistance programs oft reinforce a cycle of poverty without offering a way out for young people like myself who want to pursue higher didactics and a career.
My grandmother has always emphasized the importance of a college education. Like virtually adults in the surface area, she did not go to college herself. According to census data compiled by the Los Angeles Times, 2.ix percent of residents in Watts 25 and older take a four-twelvemonth caste. My grandmother is amid the 97.i percentage of residents without a degree, but she did the best that she could to assist me navigate the college search and application process. Still, without a college education she is at a disadvantage when information technology comes to providing continuous academic help in college. When I want any advice regarding college I ofttimes take to go exterior of my customs because the resources in Watts are designed to assistance young parents, high school dropouts, those who are unemployed, take criminal records, young children, or other categories of people that I exercise not fit into.
As I go on to struggle through college, I wonder why there aren't more resources to help me succeed, especially in an area with such a low rate of college graduates.
Growing up, the just person that I knew with a college degree in my neighborhood was my auntie. I wanted to exist just similar her. She went to the local loftier schoolhouse initially but switched to a different district when a college advisor at our local high schoolhouse told her she would take a amend chance of graduating and going on to higher if she left. Later obtaining her primary's degree from University of California Los Angeles, she reinforced my grandmother's push button for me to attend college. Both my grandmother and aunt decided that I would exist more than likely to accomplish college if I went to school out of the area. So I enrolled in a small charter schoolhouse over 10 miles abroad from my business firm. Although it took two-hours on the bus to get to and from school I loved attending a school that provided assist for college-bound students, including a $500 scholarship upon graduation– something I wished my own local school provided.
Getting into college was difficult; staying enrolled in college has been much harder. Equally a higher student today, you need a computer and Internet. (My ain school has several luxurious computers but it is over an hour away on the bus.) My neighborhood library, which is a five-minute walk from my house, has free Wi-Fi, which is dandy if you lot have a reckoner, but almost community members do not. There are simply two outdated computers available to adults, each with a fifteen-minute time limit—not a lot of time if a person has an essay to type up, needs to complete their FAFSA form, or wants to use the Cyberspace to find places that really do offer assistance to college students.
A few blocks from my flat, Thomas Riley Loftier School offers several beneficial programs that promote higher success and aid students' transition from high school to college: mentoring programs through University of Southern California, Cal State Academy Dominguez Hills, and one-on-one college and career counseling. I could definitely benefit from these resource and assistance, but these programs are non for me considering Thomas Riley High School is "a learning community for pregnant and teen moms." Teen moms have admission to local resources that tin can help one succeed, but what about those who do not take children? How are they supposed to find their way?
I spoke with ane of the very few other people my age in the neighborhood who is besides attention higher, and she has had similar experiences. Shanese Diamond, similar me, was born to a teenage mother who participated in many authorities assistance programs. And she believes that path would be easier. "I don't have whatsoever kids [and] there are limited resources for me, whereas if I had kids I would be a qualified bidder for Section viii and other welfare programs that are beneficial," Shanese told me.
Shanese believes at that place could be a better way to offer support for young adults, referring to the sometime saying, "If you give a man a fish he volition eat tonight, only if you teach a human to fish he will eat forever." If someone similar me wants lessons on how to fish they have to become exterior of Watts.
As I continue to struggle through college, I wonder why there aren't more resources to assistance me succeed, especially in an area with such a low charge per unit of college graduates. According to the Pecker & Melinda Gates Foundation, "A higher didactics is the gateway to the American middle class, with college graduates earing essentially more than than those without a caste. Just depression-income students are 28 percent less likely to finish college than those in college income brackets."
My solution? We need to provide Section 8 vouchers for higher students in neighborhoods like mine. Brand it and then we tin can rent a decent one-bedroom apartment. And create a resource centre with computers and guidance counselors. I don't think that's request for a lot. Actually, I recall it'south a great idea: Information technology would create an incentive for kids growing up in poverty, and it would help immature people like me consummate school once we get there.
This story was produced by Intersections S LA Reporter Corps, a programme of USC Annenberg School for Advice & Journalism that trains young adults to report on their own communities and The Hechinger Report.
Source: https://hechingerreport.org/watts-easier-pregnant-teen-college-student/
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