Progenitors

Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman.

Will this generation of young people do better than their parents?

Don’t be surprised if some students answer with a puzzled, what-outer-planet-are-you-from look on their faces. These are the children of the New Normal.

Their parents are working fewer hours for less money (wages are at a 65-year low). They’ve been in and out of emergency rooms, unemployment lines, bankruptcy courts. They probably didn’t finish college (sixty percent of us don’t).

There are no fairy godmothers sprinkling legacy dust on them, but these students do get help. Tuition at a community college is as low as $3000 a year. Pell grants and other federal student assistance cover most of the costs for an associate degree. The kids can get a running start. Some of the most amazing people I know were once townies.

Priti, Ali, Yourytzi, Hanna, Annam, Maria, Roger, Gentillio, Richard, Jared, Lisa, Cris, Cary, Michelle, Jonathan, Joanne, Isaac, Sang, Avril, Jonas, Hazam, Jennifer, James, Bryn, Rebecca, Jannah, Pedro, Andrea, Justin, Connelly, Aleksandrija and Hannah—yeah, they’ll will make their families proud.

Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman

Last-minute cramming for college exams is so common there’s a name for it—it’s called “pulling an all-nighter.” There are students in my classes who pull another kind of all-nighter—staying up and walking the floor with Baby. They’re called “parents.”

Our campus has an Early Childhood Education Center that invites students to bring their child to school with them. They can attend classes and study all day without worrying about a babysitter. Financial assistance is available. You and I pay for this program—it’s cheaper than prisons and the inmates are a lot cuter, assuming they’ve had their naps.