WEBVTT - The Coach Effect 0:00:15.276 --> 0:00:24.036 Pushkin. Our last episode was about an explosion, an explosion 0:00:24.076 --> 0:00:27.876 of coaching in modern life. All sorts of people are 0:00:27.876 --> 0:00:30.916 getting paid to be coaches in places that never used 0:00:30.956 --> 0:00:38.036 to have coaches, big corporations, wall street, trading floors, fire stations. 0:00:38.756 --> 0:00:41.876 People are declaring themselves coaches not just of skills, but 0:00:41.996 --> 0:00:44.796 of states of mind and getting paid to do it. 0:00:46.716 --> 0:00:49.596 So it's now more noticeable when you come across situations 0:00:49.596 --> 0:00:52.436 that cry out for a coach and no coaches around, 0:00:52.836 --> 0:00:55.996 when total amateurs who don't think of themselves as coaches 0:00:56.036 --> 0:00:59.196 are forced to coach for free because no one's doing 0:00:59.196 --> 0:01:07.596 it for money. Like this woman. I am Marsaparadan, author 0:01:07.756 --> 0:01:12.916 of several books and articles on banking and inequality, racial 0:01:12.956 --> 0:01:16.756 wealth gap, etc. Marissa came to the United States from 0:01:16.756 --> 0:01:21.196 Iran as a child. Her family were political refugees. She's 0:01:21.236 --> 0:01:23.636 now a professor at the UC Irvine Law School. But 0:01:23.636 --> 0:01:26.916 it's not her job that matters here. Mariss's brother in 0:01:26.996 --> 0:01:29.556 law is the sheriff of a small town east of 0:01:29.596 --> 0:01:32.596 Los Angeles. He called her one day to say he 0:01:32.636 --> 0:01:35.476 had taken in a high school student. She was his 0:01:35.556 --> 0:01:40.116 son's classmate and track teammate, and she was homeless. Her 0:01:40.196 --> 0:01:42.916 name is Kayla. Kayla kept getting kicked out of her 0:01:42.956 --> 0:01:47.156 home like on and off and finally permanently last year, 0:01:47.316 --> 0:01:51.676 and so their son told his parents and they just said, 0:01:51.756 --> 0:01:55.996 come live with us. Right, Marissa found Kayla totally striking, 0:01:56.556 --> 0:02:00.916 six feet tall, self possessed. But she's a seventeen year 0:02:00.916 --> 0:02:04.636 old African American girl in a poor white town, not 0:02:04.676 --> 0:02:08.636 just homeless, but working two jobs, just trying to figure 0:02:08.676 --> 0:02:12.236 out how to survive. I don't know exact date, but 0:02:12.476 --> 0:02:15.396 I think maybe around September. My mother kicked me out 0:02:15.396 --> 0:02:19.316 of the house. It was something that it happened before, 0:02:19.396 --> 0:02:22.276 but this time it was a permanent one. So I 0:02:22.436 --> 0:02:26.596 just tried to be prepared. But I mean, there's not 0:02:27.076 --> 0:02:30.116 what you can be prepared for when that happens. Why 0:02:30.116 --> 0:02:31.796 did she say she cooked you out of the house 0:02:32.156 --> 0:02:37.076 this recent time. I think it was just maybe I 0:02:37.076 --> 0:02:40.476 feel like a lack of appreciation. Maybe she didn't think 0:02:40.516 --> 0:02:43.436 I appreciated what she's done for me, because I think 0:02:43.476 --> 0:02:47.276 she felt that I was only there to finish my 0:02:47.396 --> 0:02:53.556 education and that I was using everything she gave me 0:02:53.796 --> 0:02:58.876 just to go to school. So yeah, I think that's 0:02:58.916 --> 0:03:01.996 probably the main reason why she kicked me out. Are 0:03:02.036 --> 0:03:05.196 you still in touch with her? No, I don't talk 0:03:05.196 --> 0:03:10.756 to you at all. Okay, So I asked Kayla a 0:03:10.796 --> 0:03:14.196 bunch of questions, but her new friend, Marisa had asked 0:03:14.196 --> 0:03:17.516 her more. She learned that Kayla was a star long 0:03:17.596 --> 0:03:21.756 distance runner, a great student too, who'd somehow maintained a 0:03:21.756 --> 0:03:24.876 great point average of four point zero. Klea had managed 0:03:24.916 --> 0:03:27.356 to take the SAT too. She just walked into an 0:03:27.396 --> 0:03:30.636 SAT center and taking it cold without any idea of 0:03:30.676 --> 0:03:33.476 what it was. She got a score of twelve sixty, 0:03:33.956 --> 0:03:35.796 which was better than eighty three percent of the other 0:03:35.796 --> 0:03:38.956 people who took it. Marissa could see how badly Kayla 0:03:39.036 --> 0:03:41.396 wanted to go to college, and she knew from her 0:03:41.396 --> 0:03:43.596 brother in law that college was not the obvious next 0:03:43.596 --> 0:03:46.396 step for kids from kayla school. I mean, this is 0:03:46.436 --> 0:03:47.636 a high school, and I went to one of these 0:03:47.716 --> 0:03:50.636 high schools where the only recruiters that come to campus 0:03:50.636 --> 0:03:54.276 are like military and community college. If that so, most 0:03:54.316 --> 0:03:57.596 of these kids are not four year college bat. When 0:03:57.676 --> 0:04:01.996 she first tells you what she's doing to apply to college, 0:04:02.156 --> 0:04:03.356 the first time you sit down and talk to her 0:04:03.356 --> 0:04:06.436 about it, what does she say and what is your response? 0:04:07.276 --> 0:04:09.596 She says I said, well, what colleges are applying to? 0:04:09.756 --> 0:04:12.916 And she says, well, I applied to a couple of 0:04:13.076 --> 0:04:15.596 like UC schools. I think she'd applied to like three 0:04:15.596 --> 0:04:19.436 schools at the time. She'd actually applied to four schools 0:04:19.436 --> 0:04:22.356 state schools, because you could do that for free, never 0:04:22.396 --> 0:04:26.116 mind the eventual tuition. Kayla couldn't afford the application fees. 0:04:26.316 --> 0:04:27.836 So I just asked Kayla, I'm like, hey, do you 0:04:27.876 --> 0:04:31.196 mind if I look, I'll pay for the application costs 0:04:31.196 --> 0:04:32.956 and we'll just do it together. Would you be into that? 0:04:32.996 --> 0:04:35.436 And she was super into it, right, so she was 0:04:35.476 --> 0:04:38.836 like absolutely, I want to do this anyway. That's how 0:04:38.916 --> 0:04:42.716 Marissa remembers it. Kayla recalls hesitating before she said yes. 0:04:42.996 --> 0:04:45.476 She's like, what colleges you applying for? You're only applying 0:04:45.476 --> 0:04:47.156 to four? Well, you need to apply to more. And 0:04:47.236 --> 0:04:49.036 I was like, well, I can't pay for this, and 0:04:49.116 --> 0:04:51.036 she was like, well, you don't have to worry about it. 0:04:51.076 --> 0:04:52.916 I got it. I got it covered. And at first 0:04:52.956 --> 0:04:55.276 I was really like, I'm not the type of person 0:04:55.316 --> 0:04:58.596 that accepts money from other people. It was the first 0:04:58.636 --> 0:05:01.316 time that anyone had offered to help her, and the 0:05:01.396 --> 0:05:04.076 situation was as new to Kayla as it was to Marisa, 0:05:04.276 --> 0:05:06.556 you know, you could tell that she's hungry for the 0:05:06.596 --> 0:05:09.996 coaching and she wanted it, and so I could just 0:05:10.076 --> 0:05:12.516 see that. And you know, I don't have a lot 0:05:12.516 --> 0:05:14.356 of time either, right, Like I have a full time 0:05:14.436 --> 0:05:16.796 job and kids and all the other stuff. But when 0:05:16.876 --> 0:05:19.516 you see someone like that, You're like, Okay, whatever it takes, 0:05:19.516 --> 0:05:21.756 I'm going to help you with this, because who else 0:05:21.876 --> 0:05:25.076 is going to exactly right, who else is going to 0:05:25.756 --> 0:05:28.236 Kayla Saster's the kind of kid every elite school in 0:05:28.236 --> 0:05:31.316 the country claims to be looking for. Marisa had the 0:05:31.356 --> 0:05:34.916 same thought. She also thought, oh no, I'm too late. 0:05:39.236 --> 0:05:42.956 I'm Michael Lewis, and this is against the rules. A 0:05:43.076 --> 0:05:47.556 show about various authority figures in American life. This season 0:05:47.676 --> 0:05:51.556 is about the rise of coaches, and this episode is 0:05:51.596 --> 0:05:54.836 about a place in American life where there should be coaches. 0:06:02.196 --> 0:06:06.556 Columbia asks what exhibits, lectures, theater productions, and concerts have 0:06:06.636 --> 0:06:09.036 you liked best in the last year. I'm tempted to 0:06:09.276 --> 0:06:12.316 write Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera. Psych My town doesn't 0:06:12.316 --> 0:06:16.196 even have a movie theater. Kayla Sassar's deadline for college 0:06:16.196 --> 0:06:19.516 applications was less than a month away. There wasn't time 0:06:19.556 --> 0:06:22.196 to hire an essat coach and retake the test or 0:06:22.196 --> 0:06:25.796 anything like that. So her new friend Marissa just starts 0:06:25.796 --> 0:06:29.436 grabbing applications to elite schools off the web. Now she 0:06:29.516 --> 0:06:31.476 and Kayla have to figure out how to decode what 0:06:31.596 --> 0:06:34.396 they're really asking the kids who apply. I ask her 0:06:34.516 --> 0:06:38.836 what kids do for entertainment, and she says drugs. Another 0:06:38.836 --> 0:06:42.476 school asks her what her favorite periodicals, newspapers, and websites are. 0:06:42.596 --> 0:06:45.196 She doesn't have access to a computer except when she 0:06:45.236 --> 0:06:47.636 does homework on a school computer. She doesn't get the 0:06:47.636 --> 0:06:50.876 New Yorker. She's never traveled outside her town. It just 0:06:50.916 --> 0:06:53.276 seems like anyone who can answer these questions has got 0:06:53.316 --> 0:06:57.116 to be coached. Kayla obviously needs a coach, and Marissa, 0:06:57.236 --> 0:06:59.716 just by chance and temperament, is the right person to 0:06:59.796 --> 0:07:03.836 coach her. But right away she's seeing the bigger issue. 0:07:03.956 --> 0:07:05.756 And then I'm looking at these questions and I'm like, 0:07:06.356 --> 0:07:09.516 you clearly don't get it right. You don't underst stand 0:07:09.916 --> 0:07:12.316 what it's like to grow up in a rural town 0:07:12.476 --> 0:07:16.596 and not have resources like you know, elite Americans do. 0:07:17.516 --> 0:07:20.116 So she helps Kayla with the application questions, is best 0:07:20.116 --> 0:07:22.956 she can. Then they get to the big one, the 0:07:23.076 --> 0:07:26.796 personal essay, the place where you let all these college 0:07:26.796 --> 0:07:30.356 admissions officers know who you really are. Rich kids get 0:07:30.436 --> 0:07:33.556 all kinds of help doing this. They write about their 0:07:33.636 --> 0:07:37.236 week long service trip to some poor Guatemalan village as 0:07:37.276 --> 0:07:41.516 a transformative experience in which they overcame something or other. 0:07:42.276 --> 0:07:45.916 Marisa looks at an essay Kayla already wrote the one 0:07:45.956 --> 0:07:49.236 for her University of California applications. So here she is. 0:07:49.356 --> 0:07:54.476 She's African American, you know, homeless, works two jobs, and 0:07:54.596 --> 0:07:56.636 I mean just every obstacle you want to put in 0:07:56.676 --> 0:08:01.036 someone's path, she's had it. And her essays were on, 0:08:01.956 --> 0:08:05.316 you know, like how she stopped bullies on the cross 0:08:05.356 --> 0:08:08.276 country team, which my goodness, I mean, she's a hero. 0:08:08.836 --> 0:08:11.396 But like there wasn't a lot in there where she 0:08:11.436 --> 0:08:15.876 was explaining to them the circumstances that she's overcome. Kayla 0:08:15.956 --> 0:08:19.116 has like zero perspective on her own life. This doesn't 0:08:19.116 --> 0:08:23.276 surprise Marisa. I'm a war refugee. I immigrated to America 0:08:23.316 --> 0:08:25.556 when I was ten. My mom spent my entire childhood 0:08:25.596 --> 0:08:29.116 in political prison. I saw, you know, bodies hanging in 0:08:29.196 --> 0:08:32.716 Iran and I wrote my college application on you know 0:08:32.716 --> 0:08:37.956 how Alice Walker's the color Purple changed my view of literature, right, 0:08:38.076 --> 0:08:40.596 So there was nothing in my eighteen year old college 0:08:40.596 --> 0:08:44.876 application about my background because I couldn't put it into 0:08:44.916 --> 0:08:47.836 words at the time. And when you're eighteen or seventeen, 0:08:47.876 --> 0:08:49.556 or at least when I was, and when Kayla is 0:08:49.916 --> 0:08:53.996 where she's at, you don't want to put that front 0:08:54.036 --> 0:08:56.516 and center. You don't want to be a victim. You 0:08:56.556 --> 0:09:00.156 are a survivor. You're just like everyone else. You're normal 0:09:00.636 --> 0:09:04.476 and you should be. It's not like Marisa wants Kayla 0:09:04.516 --> 0:09:07.636 to relive her trauma for the benefit of college admissions officers, 0:09:08.356 --> 0:09:10.596 but she does her to get her situation across to 0:09:10.636 --> 0:09:13.876 them because it matters. It matters that she overcame so 0:09:13.956 --> 0:09:17.076 much just to get to this point. Applying to college, 0:09:17.356 --> 0:09:20.036 she wanted to write an essay about international relations in Spanish, 0:09:20.156 --> 0:09:21.956 like why you know she wants to do foreign languages 0:09:21.956 --> 0:09:23.796 and that's her thing, And she wrote a lot about that, 0:09:23.836 --> 0:09:26.116 and I said, why you know, tell me more about 0:09:26.196 --> 0:09:28.276 what got you interest in Spanish. And it took like 0:09:28.356 --> 0:09:32.076 maybe ten questions to get to. When she first got 0:09:32.156 --> 0:09:35.756 kicked out, the family that took her in was Spanish speaking. 0:09:35.796 --> 0:09:38.836 They spoke limited English, and she felt like she really 0:09:38.876 --> 0:09:41.956 wanted to communicate with this family and she couldn't because 0:09:41.956 --> 0:09:44.836 she didn't speak Spanish. So she, you know, started listening 0:09:44.836 --> 0:09:47.396 to podcasts and books on tape just to learn Spanish 0:09:47.396 --> 0:09:49.516 so she could communicate with this family that was taking 0:09:49.516 --> 0:09:54.476 her in. That's the story, right, yes, And for her 0:09:54.596 --> 0:09:56.796 it was just I'm really interested in languages and I 0:09:56.836 --> 0:09:59.316 want to go study abroad and see how the world 0:09:59.476 --> 0:10:02.916 is and all of this stuff. Marisa went to a 0:10:02.996 --> 0:10:06.556 high school just like Kayla's. She knows Kayla because she 0:10:06.796 --> 0:10:11.196 was Kayla once and now she's her college application coach 0:10:11.956 --> 0:10:16.276 multiplied this story by thousands, and you never know, maybe 0:10:16.276 --> 0:10:25.436 it changes the world. The decline of social mobility, it's 0:10:25.436 --> 0:10:27.556 a desperate problem, and no one seems to know how 0:10:27.556 --> 0:10:30.596 to solve it. But when you hear the story of 0:10:30.676 --> 0:10:33.156 Kleis Sasser, or at least when I hear the story 0:10:33.196 --> 0:10:38.716 of Kleis Sasser, I wonder is this partly a coaching problem? 0:10:38.756 --> 0:10:41.316 That is, is it a problem that coaches might help 0:10:41.356 --> 0:10:47.116 to solve? This idea isn't original with me. Dave Eggers 0:10:47.116 --> 0:10:49.636 had it back in the year two thousand. He had 0:10:49.636 --> 0:10:52.916 recently published his first book, which was called a heartbreaking 0:10:52.916 --> 0:10:56.876 work of staggering genius, and he'd also started tutoring kids 0:10:56.876 --> 0:10:59.956 who'd fallen behind in school. When I heard about Dave 0:11:00.036 --> 0:11:02.836 doing this back then, I remember thinking he's just looking 0:11:02.836 --> 0:11:05.596 for even more ways to make other writers feel inferior. 0:11:06.796 --> 0:11:09.836 But Dave was actually into it. He could see that 0:11:09.916 --> 0:11:17.476 his tutoring had a big effect, and a thought struck him. 0:11:17.596 --> 0:11:20.716 The teachers here in San Francisco that I knew might 0:11:20.796 --> 0:11:23.476 have one hundred or one hundred and fifty students a day, 0:11:23.556 --> 0:11:27.676 and they just didn't have enough time to reach and 0:11:27.756 --> 0:11:30.196 bring every student up to grade level, especially on their 0:11:30.236 --> 0:11:33.756 English writing and reading. And so they kept saying, if 0:11:33.956 --> 0:11:37.036 I could clone myself, I could give all of these 0:11:37.116 --> 0:11:40.076 kids the time that they needed. And that just sort 0:11:40.116 --> 0:11:43.396 of sunk in and rattled in my brain for a 0:11:43.396 --> 0:11:49.116 few years, and finally we thought, well, maybe we could 0:11:49.236 --> 0:11:53.876 use all of this available time among the writers, editors, freelancers, journalists, 0:11:54.516 --> 0:11:58.196 graduate students that we know and have them become this 0:11:58.356 --> 0:12:02.316 clone army, helping the students bring each student up to 0:12:02.356 --> 0:12:05.876 grade level by giving them that hour or two of 0:12:05.876 --> 0:12:09.436 one on one attention every day after school, and it worked, 0:12:09.516 --> 0:12:12.596 and it grew kind of rapidly. Dave rented a building 0:12:12.636 --> 0:12:15.436 for his Clone Army. It was in the Mission District 0:12:15.436 --> 0:12:19.116 of San Francisco. He named the organization for the address 0:12:19.756 --> 0:12:23.196 eight twenty six Valencia. In the back was the McSweeney's 0:12:23.196 --> 0:12:26.516 publishing offices and the front was all going to be 0:12:26.596 --> 0:12:29.996 the tutoring center. But that's when the landlord told us 0:12:30.036 --> 0:12:33.116 that the front was zoned for retail and we had 0:12:33.156 --> 0:12:41.836 to sell something in the storefront. What about. That's when 0:12:41.876 --> 0:12:45.956 we came upon the idea of selling buccaneer supplies to 0:12:46.116 --> 0:12:54.916 working pirates. Twenty six Valencia became both tutoring center and 0:12:55.476 --> 0:13:02.876 pirate gear retail store. Yeah. Soon Dave opened another tutoring 0:13:02.916 --> 0:13:07.276 center in Boston, which sold Bigfoot themed merchandise, and yet 0:13:07.276 --> 0:13:11.956 another in Brooklyn, which sold superhero equipment. But as Dave's 0:13:12.036 --> 0:13:15.516 organization encountered and helped more kids, he started to see 0:13:15.556 --> 0:13:19.236 another problem. You know. The kids started aging up, and 0:13:19.276 --> 0:13:21.116 we had a lot of high school kids come in 0:13:21.196 --> 0:13:24.316 for various programs, and I started writing college rex for 0:13:24.356 --> 0:13:28.676 these kids and realizing that depending on whether or not 0:13:28.716 --> 0:13:32.396 their family their parents had gone to college, they had 0:13:32.556 --> 0:13:38.156 a drastically different levels of preparation. Dave's tutors were working 0:13:38.196 --> 0:13:40.636 mostly with kids from families in which no one had 0:13:40.676 --> 0:13:43.596 ever gone to college. He saw that the society was 0:13:43.636 --> 0:13:48.436 saying one thing about social mobility but doing another. It 0:13:48.516 --> 0:13:51.996 had structured itself to keep these kids in the class 0:13:52.036 --> 0:13:54.516 to which they were born. The kids that had family 0:13:54.516 --> 0:13:57.916 members had gone to college might be applying to twelve 0:13:58.036 --> 0:14:01.476 or thirteen colleges all over the country because they knew 0:14:01.556 --> 0:14:03.956 the landscape their parents had sort of told them the 0:14:04.436 --> 0:14:08.596 wider national college landscape. And the kids that were first 0:14:08.596 --> 0:14:10.556 in their family, they go into public schools here in 0:14:10.596 --> 0:14:15.836 San Francisco generally applied to two colleges, City College and 0:14:16.156 --> 0:14:20.676 SF State, and they did not generally know about all 0:14:20.676 --> 0:14:24.076 the other opportunities. It surprised you that the public schools 0:14:24.116 --> 0:14:27.076 that they were in didn't have college counseling departments that 0:14:27.276 --> 0:14:31.996 had done this work for them. Well. In California, the 0:14:32.116 --> 0:14:37.516 last statistic I saw said that in among public high 0:14:37.556 --> 0:14:41.876 school students in California, the ratio of students to counselors 0:14:41.996 --> 0:14:45.676 is nine hundred and forty five to one. And that's 0:14:45.756 --> 0:14:49.636 not just college counselors. That's all counselors. So I keep 0:14:49.636 --> 0:14:52.316 on meeting counselors. They would say, I'd say, what are 0:14:52.316 --> 0:14:54.796 your goals this year? And she would say, my goal 0:14:54.836 --> 0:14:57.836 this year is to meet the students in my cohort. 0:14:58.036 --> 0:15:02.036 Just meet them, let alone spending maybe ten to twelve 0:15:02.076 --> 0:15:06.036 hours per student that you might need to properly prepare 0:15:06.076 --> 0:15:12.676 them for college. In twenty and ten, Dave created this 0:15:12.716 --> 0:15:15.996 whole other organization to do for a bunch of kids 0:15:15.996 --> 0:15:19.156 in San Francisco, essentially what Marissa had set out to 0:15:19.156 --> 0:15:23.356 do for Kayla, to help them find good colleges and 0:15:23.436 --> 0:15:27.476 to get into them. Dave called this new organization scholar Match, 0:15:28.116 --> 0:15:30.676 and it was indeed able to help a couple of 0:15:30.756 --> 0:15:34.836 hundred high school kids get scholarships and all seemed well, 0:15:35.876 --> 0:15:57.996 but all was not well. So Dave eggers in his 0:15:58.116 --> 0:16:01.636 scholar Match program, we're helping low income kids get into college. 0:16:02.356 --> 0:16:04.556 But once the kids got there, they had a bunch 0:16:04.596 --> 0:16:09.556 of problems that Dave hadn't anticipated. Stress about work, stress 0:16:09.596 --> 0:16:13.716 about planning an hourly schedule, stress about their families back home, 0:16:14.556 --> 0:16:19.956 health issues, and the kids started dropping out. Nationwide, the 0:16:20.036 --> 0:16:24.276 dropout rate for first generation college students is scandalous. Only 0:16:24.316 --> 0:16:27.076 about one in every nine of them actually finishes school. 0:16:28.116 --> 0:16:31.236 Scholar Match thought they'd anticipated this problem. I mean, they'd 0:16:31.236 --> 0:16:33.036 found the right school for the student and the money 0:16:33.036 --> 0:16:36.436 to pay for it, but still forty percent of their 0:16:36.516 --> 0:16:42.396 kids were dropping out. Like, what good is it if 0:16:42.396 --> 0:16:45.196 you go to a school with a full ride that 0:16:45.716 --> 0:16:49.316 you're going to feel like you don't fit in or 0:16:49.356 --> 0:16:51.116 like you're not welcome, and then it's you're going to 0:16:51.156 --> 0:16:53.836 struggle the whole way and not make it anyway. Her 0:16:53.956 --> 0:16:57.356 name is Diana Adamson. Dave Eggers hired her to run 0:16:57.396 --> 0:17:00.956 scholar Match, and Diana started keeping a mental list of 0:17:00.996 --> 0:17:05.236 all the snags their first generation students hit. A failed 0:17:05.316 --> 0:17:11.036 class and illness, the wrong major, a parent whose immigration 0:17:11.116 --> 0:17:15.516 status was called into question. These kids were being dealt 0:17:15.556 --> 0:17:19.396 crippling blows by things that privileged kids might treat us 0:17:19.396 --> 0:17:22.196 bumps in the road, and the blows could come before 0:17:22.196 --> 0:17:26.196 they even set foot on any college campus. The summer 0:17:26.276 --> 0:17:29.356 before the start of college was especially fraught. So there's 0:17:29.356 --> 0:17:32.236 two things that happened in that summer. One is they 0:17:32.236 --> 0:17:34.316 have to put in a housing deposit to reserve their 0:17:34.356 --> 0:17:37.516 dorm and it costs a couple hundred dollars, sometimes as 0:17:37.596 --> 0:17:41.076 much as four hundred. Most of our students have a 0:17:41.076 --> 0:17:43.156 little bit of difficulty of coming up with four hundred 0:17:43.156 --> 0:17:46.316 dollars in a week to send off to the school. 0:17:46.716 --> 0:17:48.996 But if you don't do that, then you run the 0:17:49.076 --> 0:17:50.996 risk of not getting put into dorm. And we've seen 0:17:50.996 --> 0:17:53.716 that happen. And so then a student gets the money, 0:17:53.716 --> 0:17:55.996 but it's late, and then they're not prioritized for a 0:17:56.036 --> 0:17:59.236 dorm plicement, and then they suddenly don't have a dorm. 0:17:59.276 --> 0:18:01.076 They have to live off campus as a freshman, and 0:18:01.236 --> 0:18:05.316 it just becomes the first step in the unraveling of 0:18:06.276 --> 0:18:08.836 oh what am I doing here? I don't belong here. 0:18:12.796 --> 0:18:15.836 First generation college students from low income families were in 0:18:15.876 --> 0:18:18.956 some ways incredibly robust. I mean, just to get into 0:18:18.996 --> 0:18:21.876 a college was an amazing achievement, but they could be 0:18:21.996 --> 0:18:26.756 derailed by problems that money alone couldn't solve. Even my 0:18:26.796 --> 0:18:30.916 family disagreed with going into Ohio. Meet Andy Saw of 0:18:30.956 --> 0:18:33.876 San Francisco, and your parents did not going to college? 0:18:34.316 --> 0:18:37.756 No dinning to fardest stag I was in high school. 0:18:37.876 --> 0:18:40.316 Were they born and raised here? They are all from China? 0:18:40.436 --> 0:18:43.476 Are they? Yeah? None of them speak English. Andy went 0:18:43.516 --> 0:18:46.476 through the scholar Match program and it introduced him to 0:18:46.556 --> 0:18:49.596 the world, especially the world of private colleges with full 0:18:49.676 --> 0:18:53.716 ride scholarships. Before that, he just assumed he'd go to 0:18:53.756 --> 0:18:58.076 community college and maybe one day, if he got really lucky, 0:18:58.396 --> 0:19:01.916 he'd transferred to a state university. I went over to 0:19:02.036 --> 0:19:06.516 Tramission District. I was like, any helped with my application? 0:19:06.716 --> 0:19:09.596 I'm not sure what I'm really doing either. That's where 0:19:10.316 --> 0:19:13.196 Ohio Wesleyan came into the picture. How did it come 0:19:13.236 --> 0:19:16.556 into the picture? Because I told him, well, doubt like 0:19:17.396 --> 0:19:21.076 our community, the Asian American community, only thinks about UCSH. 0:19:21.436 --> 0:19:24.036 So like you see this, you see that that's like 0:19:24.116 --> 0:19:26.316 my only option. And then we have safety schools like 0:19:26.316 --> 0:19:28.076 state and City. For sure, I'll get and those, but 0:19:28.596 --> 0:19:33.036 UC is to reach right. Andy was talking with a 0:19:33.076 --> 0:19:36.356 guy named Noel Ramirez, the person at scholar Match. You 0:19:36.516 --> 0:19:39.036 helped him with his college application. And the thing with 0:19:39.076 --> 0:19:41.356 Andy is that we had many conversations, and I can 0:19:41.396 --> 0:19:47.316 recall with him that he had this exceptional interest in life. 0:19:47.436 --> 0:19:50.596 It was beyond getting the job. You know, I think 0:19:50.636 --> 0:19:53.156 it'd be letter recommendations I wrote for him that I 0:19:53.196 --> 0:19:55.156 said that he was the type of student that wasn't 0:19:55.196 --> 0:19:59.236 only interested in, you know, getting a job, getting married, 0:19:59.716 --> 0:20:03.876 buying house, having kids, buying a pet. So with that, 0:20:03.956 --> 0:20:07.516 I felt he would thrive at a place that would 0:20:07.516 --> 0:20:10.036 have those types of conversations, where he could take philosophy class, 0:20:10.316 --> 0:20:12.196 a religion class, where he would meet people from all 0:20:12.276 --> 0:20:13.716 over the world, where he would take a risk and 0:20:13.756 --> 0:20:16.756 go to a place that looks completely different from his world. 0:20:17.476 --> 0:20:20.716 So Noel and Andy focused on applying to Ohio Wesleyan. 0:20:21.756 --> 0:20:24.596 The school had a great biology program but also a 0:20:24.636 --> 0:20:29.156 strong humanities program. It not only accepted Andy, he was 0:20:29.196 --> 0:20:32.276 able to go there on scholarship. All Andy needed to 0:20:32.316 --> 0:20:34.996 do was to get there, and that's when things took 0:20:34.996 --> 0:20:42.276 a turn. Keep in mind, doesn't make my second time flying. 0:20:42.396 --> 0:20:45.036 I did not know what to do. Andy's only other 0:20:45.076 --> 0:20:47.596 time flying was when he was six months old. He 0:20:47.636 --> 0:20:50.116 had no real experience with travel, and at the San 0:20:50.156 --> 0:20:53.676 Francisco Airport his plane was fogged in. By the time 0:20:53.676 --> 0:20:56.676 he landed in Chicago for his connecting flight to Ohio, 0:20:57.356 --> 0:21:01.236 the flight was gone. What do you do? I walked 0:21:01.236 --> 0:21:04.236 around just following people who were like on the same 0:21:04.236 --> 0:21:07.756 planeful of us to going Ohio. Just listening to what 0:21:07.836 --> 0:21:11.196 everyone's saying somewhere like I just I'm gonna go to 0:21:11.196 --> 0:21:13.716 a hotel and sleep. And I'm like, I don't really 0:21:13.716 --> 0:21:16.356 notice neighborhood, Like I don't want to take that risk. 0:21:16.796 --> 0:21:20.356 He's now living in his head. So I walked around more. 0:21:20.956 --> 0:21:22.596 They gave us a food voucher and I got my 0:21:22.596 --> 0:21:25.716 food from McDonald's and I decided, like, it's not worth 0:21:25.876 --> 0:21:28.916 going outside. I should just sleep in the airport. But 0:21:28.956 --> 0:21:30.636 then someone told him he needed to go to the 0:21:30.636 --> 0:21:32.916 ticket counter to get on the first flight out in 0:21:32.956 --> 0:21:36.836 the morning, and Andy met his first gate agent. The 0:21:36.836 --> 0:21:40.196 airline person ripped up my ticket. He said, this ticket 0:21:40.276 --> 0:21:42.196 no longer works. We're gonna rip it up. He ripped 0:21:42.196 --> 0:21:43.676 it in front of my face and I was like, man, 0:21:43.756 --> 0:21:44.996 you can't do this to me right now, and I 0:21:45.036 --> 0:21:46.876 tear it up. So you thought he was taking away 0:21:46.916 --> 0:21:49.356 your ticket. Yeah, I was gonna be trapped into hair. 0:21:49.396 --> 0:21:52.116 I was like, why don't you do that? I started 0:21:52.116 --> 0:21:54.876 tearing out. I was like where first time crying so 0:21:55.316 --> 0:21:58.036 really well, like in front of people. Yeah, they ripped 0:21:58.036 --> 0:22:00.516 over your ticket. It's like they sent and seeing YouTube 0:22:00.636 --> 0:22:02.996 life in prison in O'Hare airport. Yeah, because what it 0:22:03.076 --> 0:22:04.956 feels like I was going to be trapped her Like, 0:22:04.956 --> 0:22:09.956 why'd you do that? I have no exit? Now, Yeah, 0:22:09.996 --> 0:22:15.556 that was pretty bad, and it was bad, but it 0:22:15.596 --> 0:22:20.356 got worse. Andy called home and his family reminded him 0:22:20.396 --> 0:22:22.476 that they hadn't liked the idea of him going so 0:22:22.556 --> 0:22:25.716 far away. Your family, your family thought it was a 0:22:25.716 --> 0:22:27.516 bad idea. It was a bad idea, like, look, well, 0:22:27.556 --> 0:22:29.316 look what you've been doing, Like you shouldn't not be 0:22:29.356 --> 0:22:31.876 going to this place. Look at all these negative outcome 0:22:31.916 --> 0:22:34.916 that happened. Andy tried to sleep that night on the 0:22:34.956 --> 0:22:38.516 floor of O'Hare Airport, but his parents' fears echoed in 0:22:38.596 --> 0:22:41.076 his head. It was a bad ideally, look on out 0:22:41.156 --> 0:22:45.156 negative outcome that happened. This far away college thing was 0:22:45.196 --> 0:22:52.116 a big mistake. And he comes back like with this 0:22:52.276 --> 0:22:54.236 terrible attitude about the trip, saying, I don't want to 0:22:54.236 --> 0:22:57.956 go anymore. It's not worth it. Noel Ramirez again, Andy's 0:22:57.996 --> 0:23:01.916 college coach. I just I couldn't believe it. That's something 0:23:01.916 --> 0:23:03.916 that I guess I wasn't prepared. I didn't know I 0:23:03.956 --> 0:23:07.476 should have prepared him in advanced mentally, what happens when 0:23:07.556 --> 0:23:10.396 you face these types of obstacles, But how would how 0:23:10.436 --> 0:23:12.036 would you ever have prepared him for it? I guess 0:23:12.036 --> 0:23:14.516 you could have taken him you simulate a flight, actually, 0:23:14.596 --> 0:23:17.716 you know, to be honest, after that incident, that's that's 0:23:17.756 --> 0:23:20.636 what I started to do actually for students that were 0:23:20.676 --> 0:23:24.116 going to taking a plane right away. We did develop 0:23:24.836 --> 0:23:26.916 kind of a training module for these students so that 0:23:26.956 --> 0:23:30.476 they know exactly what to do. This sort of thing 0:23:30.556 --> 0:23:33.796 was now happening all the time at scholar Match. Here's 0:23:33.876 --> 0:23:37.156 Dave Eggers again. Once there was an obstacle, or once 0:23:37.196 --> 0:23:40.996 there was a reason to quit, they often did. They don't. 0:23:41.076 --> 0:23:42.836 They don't have a set of assumptions like the set 0:23:42.876 --> 0:23:44.956 of assumptions that you and I grew up with that 0:23:44.996 --> 0:23:47.356 you just you're just supposed to go to college when 0:23:47.356 --> 0:23:49.996 you are the first It can be like heading out, 0:23:50.396 --> 0:23:52.956 you know, on a polar expedition to the North Pole, 0:23:53.036 --> 0:23:55.756