[Latino College Gap Episode 2]

[Underwriting] The Enduring Gap podcast is made possible by an Education

Writers Association fellowship. EWA fellowships support ambitious education
journalism projects.

[MX CUE 1]

….

[Track1] Twice a week in the spring of 2021, Andres Mendoza left work an hour
early so he could get home in time for his online classes.

[Ambi1-Andres greetings: sound of keys opening door, greeting dog]

[Ambi2-Andres letting dog outside: sound of back door sliding open & closed]

[Track2] He let his dachshund Draco outside, then logged onto Blackboard to get
his latest assignments.

[Ambi3-Andres computer starting]

[Ambi4-Andres looking up accounting homework :26

[Sounds of mouse clicking] “It's only technically nine questions, but it's really
probably about 40 questions…This actually doesn't look too bad. I might not be
doing homework all night today. Okay, this isn't that bad. That's a relief.”]

[Track3] Mendoza is 25 and a junior at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He

works full time and goes to college part time so he can support himself without
going into debt.

[MX CUE 2]

[Andres1 :12

“I've never liked to owe anybody money, regardless if it's $5.50. I don't like owing
anybody money, so having to owe the government money is even worse.”]

[Track4] From Texas Public Radio, this is the Enduring Gap, a limited series
exploring some of the reasons more Latinos aren’t earning college degrees in San
Antonio. I’m Camille Phillips.
San Antonio is 64% Hispanic, but white adults in San Antonio are more than twice
as likely to have a bachelor’s degree. Why? There isn’t a lot of research on that,
especially at the local level.

So, we went looking for answers ourselves. TPR surveyed more than 2600
students enrolled in San Antonio’s public institutions of higher education in early
2021.

One of the main topics of the survey was paying for college. We asked students
about work, grants, and scholarships. Over and over again, one issue rose to the
top: college loans.

This is episode 2: "I don't like owing people money."

[Music cue 2 fades out.]

[Track5] Mendoza originally planned to go to Texas State University after high

school, but he didn’t receive enough financial aid. Like a lot of middle-income
families, his parents made too much money for him to qualify for the Pell Grant,
but not enough to be able to afford tuition, room and board without loans.

[Andres2 :40

“They could have paid for it, but my circumstances were a little bit difficult my
senior year. My grandpa had actually passed away on, like, the first day of my
senior year. And then, unexpectedly, my uncle — who was supposed to take care
of everybody over there, he passed away from pancreatic cancer…My parents
being the good people that they are, forked over a lot of money to help with the
funeral expenses, so I didn't want to throw another big lump sum of money at
them just to go to college.”]

[Track6] Instead, Mendoza opted to stay in Corpus Christi and go to Del Mar, the
local community college.

[Andres3 :21

“We made it out with no debt or anything like that. And it was it was a blessing in
disguise, honestly. I I would have rather my senior year went a little different, but
you know, me choosing to go to community college was really like the best
decision that I could have made.”]
[Track7] After completing his basic credits, Mendoza transferred to UTSA to finish
his bachelor's degree. Now that he's older, he's eligible for need-based financial
aid because it's based on his income, not his parents'.

But it doesn't cover everything. Mendoza charges the occasional textbook to a

credit card, and he works full time to cover his living expenses without taking out
student loans.

[Andres4 17:38

“It's basically like working two jobs, like, I get off work, and then I pretty much
clock back in when I walk in my apartment door to start doing homework.”]

[Track8] He says life is too precarious to risk being on the hook for paying back
the interest on college loans for decades.

[Andres5 4:38

“Stuff happens. Coronavirus happens; people get laid off from their job. You know,
in my case, I had to have surgery and whatnot. Fortunate enough for me, I have
insurance but like a lot of people don't have insurance. So, if somebody was in my
situation, and they had to pay off a loan, and then something unexpected like a
surgery came up, well then it’s, like, here comes another pile of debt to add to my
credit.”]

[Track9] Mendoza is not the only one to feel that way. TPR’s survey found that a
lot of Latino college students in San Antonio are wary of student loans.

A little less than half of the students who responded to the survey said they took
out loans to pay for school. And Latino students were just as likely to take out
loans as white students. But the reasons students didn’t take out loans varied a
lot depending on their race and ethnicity.

Most Black and Latino students who didn’t take out loans said they were afraid
they wouldn’t be able to pay them back. Most white students said they didn’t
take out loans because they could get by without them.

[MX CUE 3]
[Track10] And those reasons matter. Sandy Baum is a college finance expert with
the Urban Institute. She says avoiding student loans when you have a hard time
paying for college without them can reduce a student’s chances of graduating.

[Music cue 3 ends.]

[Baum1 :23

“Even though the public discourse is very much about how borrowing too much
can be a problem, there is some pretty strong evidence that not borrowing enough
can also be a problem … The issue is pretty straightforward: if you take a loan
instead of working the extra hours to get that money, then you have more time to
devote to your studies.”]

[Track11] In TPR’s survey, lower-income Latinos were less likely to take out loans
than white students in the same income brackets.

But Latino students still take on other forms of debt. Erica McDonald is one of the
nearly 200 Hispanic survey respondents who said they haven’t taken out student
loans … but they HAVE charged some school expenses to a credit card.

She says she doesn’t want to take on student debt because she already has credit
card debt.

[McDonald 1 41:15 …41:53

I wish that was something that they’d teach us, like in high school, like about APR,
and credit cards, and things like that, because I probably would never have taken
out a credit card when I was 18…My mom just told us never to take out loans.
Like, she was like, ‘Don't ever do that, because if you don't pay it back right away
it'll mess up your credit.”]

[Track12] McDonald is 30 and married with two young children. She stays home
with her kids and takes online classes at San Antonio College while her husband
works.

[McDonald2 36:06

“People send me stuff for like student loans. And I'm like, I don't want to do that.
Because … I would worry about it, and (since) I'm not working, having to ask my
husband, 'Hey, can you help me pay this student loan off?' It would just bother me,
so that's why I tried really, really hard to make sure that I had really good grades
to qualify for financial aid, and If I hadn't, I would have had to take out that loan.
And I really didn't want to.”

[Track13] She decided to go back to college in the fall of 2020, 10 years after she
dropped out.

[MX CUE 4]

[McDonald3 :25

“This is the first year that I've even really been driven to really go to school, like I
was like, ‘Alright, let's do it.’ And I did it during the most stressful time of America,
when everyone was adjusting to the pandemic…I wanted to be able to have a
purpose.”]

[Track14] McDonald wants to open a vegetarian food truck, but she felt like she
needed to know more about running a business first.

Her first semester back, she hadn’t been approved for financial aid yet. She
enrolled in two classes while she waited for her Pell grant to kick in.

[McDonald4 :12

“That's all I could afford at the time. I would have taken more if I had had the
money to spend. My husband put things on credit cards, just so I could go to
school.]

[Music cue 4 ends.]

[Track15] They added the $800 tuition fee to the credit card balance they’re
trying to pay off, even though it has a high interest rate. McDonald says they hope
to be able to pay it off when they get their tax returns.

[McDonald5 :06

“Hopefully we'll be able to just pay that one off, because that's the one that hurts
us the most.”]

[Track16] McDonald’s experience with credit card debt makes her more
determined to avoid student loans.
That’s a common reaction for Black and Latino students, according to Vanessa
Sansone. She’s an assistant professor of education policy at UTSA.

[Sansone1 21:56

“Usually loans in the context of our community are focused on like a payday
lender, these predatory loans.”]

[Track17] Sansone grew up in a lower income family on San Antonio’s East Side
and was the first in her family to go to college. She experienced many of the
inequities she researches first hand.

[Sansone2short 22:16; 23:06; 23:30

“You know, it's pretty traumatic when you have somebody who's trying to
repossess your car because you couldn't pay your note…Even though one could
say, 'But a loan–a student loan is a good investment and you can always pay that
back once you get your job,’ They have this context of what a loan is, and how it
has consistently harmed their families and their communities…. The way that
they're making decisions about things is going to be completely different than a
white student.”]

[MX CUE 5]

[Track18] San Antonio’s Black and Latino college students are also significantly
more likely to be from low-income families, giving them fewer resources to fall
back on during tough times.

Francisco Hernandez says that’s part of the reason he’s avoided student loans.

[Music cue 5 ends.]

[Hernandez1 :17

“Growing up in a low-income family I have seen my family all suffer debt…They

had to work multiple jobs just to be able to pay off one loan when they had
multiple other loans taken out in their name.”]

[Track19] Hernandez is 23. He’s a geology major who wants to work in water
resources when he finishes his bachelor’s degree.
After seeing his family struggle with loans, he says he would be constantly
worried if he took out student loans. He grew up in Brownsville and moved to San
Antonio when he was 18.

[Hernandez2 :09

“After college, I want my time to be my time...(I just don’t want to be worrying

about any additional bills as far as, like loans or anything I have to pay back.”]

[Track20] In the spring of 2021, Hernandez worked full time at a call center while
going to school full time at San Antonio College. He also had a part time job and
took on odd jobs whenever he could, doing manual labor and teaching coding and
piano.

[Hernandez3 13:53

“I've been trying to save up for for money for when I transfer to to my university,
which is Texas State. So I'm thinking like rent, groceries, future car bills.”]

[Track21] The Pell grant completely covered his tuition plus some living expenses
at San Antonio College, but tuition is more expensive at Texas State. He wants to
have money saved up for living expenses so he doesn’t have to work or take out
loans while he’s adjusting to his new school.

[Hernandez4 :17

“I already looked at the syllabus for my classes, and just reading into them, it gets
me excited for my major. But they don't look like my typical ‘do the assignment
and you'll pass’ type of class. It definitely looks like I'll have to do the work for it.”]

[MX CUE 6]

[Track22] Some students also don’t have access to federally subsidized loans,
which have greater protection for borrowers than other student loans.
Undocumented students, including DACA recipients, aren’t eligible for federal
financial aid of any type, including Pell grants and loans.

[Music Cue 6 ends.]

[Track23] Xochitl Bynum was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and moved to San
Antonio when she was 11. She tried to go to college in 2007 but had to drop out
because she couldn’t get any financial aid.

[Bynum1 :16

“Back then, I was not able to complete my studies, because I didn't have any legal
status here…. I was not able to have any scholarships, I was not able to enroll in an
actual university at the time, because I didn't have a social security number.”]

[Track24] She became a U.S. citizen after she married and earned two associate’s
degrees in four years.

Now 33 and a single mom, Bynum is studying education at Texas A&M University-
San Antonio. She says she wants to follow in the footsteps of her middle school
English language teachers.

[Bynum2 41:36

“They were the ones that actually made me realize that I was able to learn a new
language. That I was good at it. That I had a lot to give.”]

[MX CUE 7]

[Track25] Sandy Baum with the Urban Institute says the research is clear:
Students are more likely to graduate when their parents pay for college … or they
have enough grants to cover all of their expenses.

[Baum2 :21

“The evidence about loans is more complicated, because if the loans are replacing
grants, you're better off having grants….However, there is evidence that having
the loans and having that cash can help you to succeed. And it's really being short
of cash that is the biggest problem and interfering with a student's ability to
succeed academically.”]

[Track26] There’s not a lot of national research on what that means for Latinos,
but there are a few studies here and there that suggest some answers.
In 2020, the University of North Carolina partnered with the civil rights group
Unidos [oo-NEE-dos] US to survey Latino students who had dropped out of
college.

Amanda Martinez is with Unidos US.

[Music cue 7 ends.]

[Martinez1 :14

“Higher education in this nation wasn’t really made for Latino students…. There’s
definitely a gap of knowledge, a gap of understanding of the community, of their
needs and what makes them successful.”]

[Track27] Like TPR, their survey found that Latinos are wary of student loans —
and that avoiding loans was part of the reason they left college without earning a
degree.

But report co-author Kate Sablosky Elengold with UNC Law says that DOES NOT
mean financial aid offices need to do a better job convincing them to take on
more debt.

[Elengold1 10:41-11:21

“First of all, there are rational, logical reasons for Latino students, or really any
student, to be averse to education debt. College is really expensive. There are
predatory institutions, there are predatory lenders…Just asking students to take
on more debt and to take more of the risk and burden onto themselves is not
going to level the playing field.”

[Track28] Instead, she recommends changing policies at the federal and state
level to make college more affordable and financial aid more accessible.

[Elengold2 11:25-12:00

“We really have to think about who's bearing the risk and why, and who should be
bearing the risk…And I would just add that, Over the course of the last few
decades, debt has been increasingly available and increasingly more expensive.
Pell Grant, the purchasing power of Pell Grants has declined dramatically.”]
[Track29] Another UNC co-author, Jess Dorrance [DOOR-ihnce], says employment
discrimination and inequities in the labor market are another reason simply
recommending Latino students take on more debt is a bad idea.

[Dorrance1 49:55

“They're getting a degree in the hopes of having new opportunities for jobs and
increase their wages and their income, but I think for a lot of folks, they don't feel
particularly secure that they're going to be able to get a job that pays the wages
they need it to in the field that they've been studying.”]

[Track30] Black and Latino Americans have a higher unemployment rate than
white Americans.

Sablosky Elengold says Latino students might feel like a loan is too risky because
they’re not confident they’ll find a good job after they graduate.

[Elengold3 13:36-13:49

“You can't separate out lack of access to opportunity, discrimination, you know, all
the things that occur in the labor market from taking on debt and asking students
to take on more debt.”]

[MX CUE 8]

[Track31] That’s the exact situation Andres Mendoza is afraid of. He changed his
major because he was worried he’d have a hard time working his way up the
career ladder as a person of color.

When he started community college, he wanted to become a sports broadcaster

and work for ESPN, but he noticed there were very few Latinos in primetime
spots. Now he’s studying business at UTSA and dreams of working for the front
office of a professional sports team.

[Andres6

“People that are in charge of hiring at big corporations and whatnot … most of the
people are white…. Since we're people of color, we have to get a college degree
and we have to go above and beyond to make an impact, to get a job somewhere,
to do anything.”]
[Music cue 8 ends here.]

[Track32] He sees the cost of college as just one more barrier he has to get past in
order to succeed.

[Andres7

“To me loans are just not fair. I think that college should be funded for everybody,
especially if they expect us to go and especially if the whole bar is set that you
have to have a college degree to be successful, then why don’t they help us
more?...“Why do they expect us to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for this to
happen?”]

[Pause.]

[Track33] So far, there hasn’t been enough political will to fund college for
everybody in the U.S. But if cities like San Antonio truly want to boost their
economy, and if colleges are serious about serving the students in their backyard,
then they need to come up with solutions to support students who aren’t
comfortable taking out loans.

Colleges have endowments and scholarship dollars that CAN make an impact,
depending on how they choose to spend them.

[MX CUE 9]

So, what are San Antonio’s colleges doing? Where are they directing their
scholarship dollars? And is it enough to keep students wary of loans enrolled?

[Track34] In 2019, UTSA started a new program to help make college more
affordable for lower income students.

Bold Promise covers tuition and fees for students who enroll in UTSA right after
high school and have family incomes of up to 70,000 dollars. They also must be
Texas residents and graduate from high school in the top 25% of their class.

[music cue 9 fade out.]

When the program was announced, the income threshold was around 50,000
dollars. At the time, Provost Kimberly Espy said it would help more people go to
college.

[Espy 2019 :12

“By making college more affordable, we’re enabling more people to go. We want
to keep student debt as low as possible, and this is certainly a piece of that.”]

[Track35] Mendoza doesn’t qualify for Bold Promise because he’s a transfer
student. Even if it had been around when he graduated high school, he wouldn’t
have qualified because his family makes slightly too much money. His mom’s
family owns a flooring business and his dad is a sales rep for a paint company.

But it’s been a godsend for Deniff Lara, who graduated from high school in San
Antonio in 2020.

[Deniff1 Oct 3 6:06

“Like, it's worth going to college and graduating now, because I won't have
necessarily as much of an issue after I graduate, because I don't have to take out
any loans. So, because that is my case, like, it's honestly like, super awesome. And
like, I'm super blessed, because it's going to pay off immediately after I
graduate.”]

[Track36] Lara lives with her mom and grandma, and they don’t have a lot of
money. Her mom cleans houses for a living.

[Deniff2 Oct 1 1:06:00]

“Sometimes we can afford to go places, and sometimes we can't….It's just a

matter what you want to sacrifice and like what you can give up.”

[Deniff3 Oct 1 16:50]

“And, I mean there’s always the food pantry. The food pantry has helped a lot
because they now partner with Whataburger, which is cool, because you get like
free Whataburger gift cards and stuff.”

[Track37] Statistically speaking, Lara knows that she’ll probably make more
money with a college degree. But if she’d had to take out loans to pay for college,
she says she would have had to think carefully about whether or not it was worth
it.

[Deniff4 Oct 3 5:44

“I know sometimes the return is a lot greater, but because student loans are so
tricky, because they have such a high interest rate, sometimes they take years and
years and years to pay off. And financially, it's worth it, but in like the very, very,
very, very, very long run, you know, and for me, I feel like it's worth it now.”]

[MX CUE 10]

[Deniff5 Oct 3 1:28

“For me, I do think college is worth it. Just because I feel like I've grown in so many
areas, you know, not just in my field, but like, all around, you know, as a person
and meeting incredible people, like, I would never give that up, like, I would never
go back.”]

[Mx cue 10 ends here.]

[Track38] UTSA Vice Provost Lynn Barnes Lynn Barnes, UTSA’s senior vice provost
of strategic enrollment, says the university started intentionally focusing on
better supporting Latino students about five years ago. He says, and the launch of
Bold Promise in the Fall of 2020 is a big step towards that goal:

[Barnes1 16:20

“We had about 940 students enroll last fall, who received the Bold Promise
awards. And, you know, 78% of those were Latino, which is higher than our Latino
overall student population. So, you know, we are very pleased that it's reaching
any low income student who meets the criteria, but especially being
predominantly Latino or Hispanic, that's speaking well for supporting, you know,
students success for those students.”]

[Track39] When UTSA announced Bold Promise in 2019, Barnes said more than
4,000 students would meet the income requirements. But its initial cohort in the
fall of 2020 — at the heart of the pandemic — had less than a thousand students.

Barnes says more students would have qualified, but they didn’t get their
financial aid application in before the January 15th priority deadline.
[Barnes2 17:10

“Part of it is getting students to complete their FAFSA earlier, which, you know, is
something that we focus on with our messaging to students, counselors, family
members. You know, ‘Don't forget to apply for financial aid early,’ because we
want them to maximize all resources available to them.”]

[Track40] The early deadline means students qualify for more state and federal
grants — and lowers the cost for the university. Bold Promise is what’s called a
last-dollar scholarship — it kicks in if grants aren’t enough.

[Barnes3 18:06

“From a priority perspective on funds that are limited, like TEXAS grant, for
example, which is a state grant program, students have to meet that FAFSA
deadline to be eligible to be considered so we use that same deadline to
determine Bold Promise eligibility.”

[Track41] Part of the reason Lara has to rely on UTSA’s food pantry is because
Bold Promise isn’t a full ride — it just promises to cover tuition and fees, not living
expenses.

She says she got a couple thousand dollars back from the financial aid office last
spring, and about a thousand in the fall. But that doesn’t go very far.

Barnes says there’s only so much UTSA can afford to do as an institution. If

students want financial aid to cover the full cost of attendance, part of it still has
to be covered with loans.

[Barnes4 22ish

“There still is a gap. …This isn't like a 100%, free education situation. And so, we're
sensitive to that, and we're trying to continue to raise more money for grants and
institutional funds…. But there's still a gap. And we understand that. And so, we
have a financial wellness team that works to counsel and work with students, you
know, on ways to, you know, manage their money, and, you know, stretch their
dollars and the funding that they are receiving.”]

[MX CUE 11]

[Track42] All three of San Antonio’s public institutions of higher education have
launched new free tuition programs in recent years. In addition to UTSA’s Bold
Promise, the community college system in San Antonio launched AlamoPROMISE,
and Texas A&M University-San Antonio started Achiever Promise.

Promise scholarships have become more popular across the country in the past
few years. They promise students they can earn a degree without having to pay
tuition.

[Music cue 11 fades out.]

Alamo Colleges Chancellor Mike Flores campaigned hard to get business leaders
to fund AlamoPROMISE in 2019. He sees it as a way to transform San Antonio into
a city where most high school grads go to college:

[Flores1 2:12

“The college participation rate right now is 45%, it was actually in 2010, 50%. So,
we're going in, we'd like to head in the other direction to go back up to 50. And in
fact, over five years to move to a 70% college participation rate.”]

[Track43] AlamoPROMISE covers tuition and fees for up to 3 years for students
who graduate from one of San Antonio’s public high schools. The plan is to
eventually include all of San Antonio’s schools. Right now, it’s open to about 45
with a focus on high schools in lower income neighborhoods with lower college-
going rates.

Cindy Mendiola-Perez is one of the Alamo Colleges’ associate vice chancellors:

[Mendiola1 10:29

“We've identified Alamo Promise as a way to help our students, in particular those
high school graduates, who do come from large Latino population high schools,
who come from economically disadvantaged households, and areas of our city.
Providing that last dollar scholarship to help support them, has been a critical
initiative for us in engaging the Latino students.]

[Track44] A&M-San Antonio’s Promise program is more limited than UTSA’s and
Alamo Colleges’. It only covers tuition, not fees, and students either have to be in
the top 10 percent of their class or graduate from an early college high school in
Texas with at least 30 hours of college credits.

When the program was announced in 2020, A&M-San Antonio President Cynthia
Teniente-Matson said it would give high-achieving local students an affordable
option close to home.

[Teniente1 4:41

“We know that students can get recruited away to wonderful schools throughout
the United States, but there are a lot of hidden costs in that including living
expenses and travel expenses, and not being able to come home during family
emergencies or times when they're needed.”]

[Track45] But even with scholarships and grants, A&M-San Antonio Vice
President’s Mari Fuentes-Martin says many of their students have to take out
loans if they want to go to school full time.

[Fuentes-Martin1 27:45 ish

“What I'm trying to tell students is that investing in yourself in student loans is
long term more beneficial to you and your family than it is not borrowing a
student loan and only coming to school a little bit at a time. But that’s very hard to
change the mindset of families that have always grown up this way.”

ME 28:18

“So, you see your role as like trying to encourage them to see loans, student loans
as a good investment?”

28:25

“I'm trying to encourage them to see that graduating in a shorter time for a small
investment is better than graduating over an extended amount of time and
delaying your income. So, it's kind of like that cost benefit analysis. So, I'm not
saying championing, yes, get a loan, but I am championing graduate sooner than
later and get to the work that you want to do.”]

[Track46] Like UTSA’s Lynn Barnes, Fuentes-Martin says there are limits to what
A&M-San Antonio can afford to do for students.
[Fuentes-Martin2 31:43

“We now only get about 30% of our funding from the legislature or other state
resources, and so that puts the burden of the cost of higher education on students
and families. Or on us to find scholarship dollars, you know, to be able to award
students.”]

[MX CUE 12]

[Pause. Music transition.]

[Track47] With those limits in place, a lot of lower-income students will continue
to struggle to find a way to afford college. And because Black and Latino students
are disproportionately low income — and more likely to be wary of loans —
they’re also more likely to find they can’t afford to finish — or even start — their
degree.

The Promise scholarships lower the burden for some San Antonio students, but
they don’t erase all of their financial challenges. We’ll have to wait and see if
they’ll be enough to FINALLY shrink the gap between the number of Latino adults
and white adults with a college degree.

[MX CUE 13]

[Track48] For many students, being able to afford college is only the beginning.
Coming up in our next episode, we ask students: What do you do if your family
needs you at home?

[Sansone3 1:20:24

“It's a privilege to be able to not have to worry about anything but school. Like
that idea about, ‘Oh, no, my son, you know, or daughter, school is their only job.’
That’s a privilege nowadays. That’s such a privilege, because it also means you’re
not stressing about anything else.”]

[Track49] [Credits:] The Enduring Gap is a production of Texas Public Radio. This
episode was edited by Fernando Ortiz Jr. Jacob Rosati did sound design. Dan Katz
is our news director. I’m Camille Phillips.

[Music cue 13 fades out.]

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////