Center for American Progress

The best route for moving up is in danger of being blocked
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The best route for moving up is in danger of being blocked

Through the lens of a community college student in rural Louisiana, Marcella Bombardieri describes why Congress must invest sufficiently in public colleges amid the coronavirus pandemic.

WINNFIELD, La. — “Campus” is a fancy word for the single-story arcaded building, in a little town wrapped in pine and hardwood forest, where Olivia Cohea found her path to a better life. A young woman whose family was crushed by addiction, Cohea heard from adults in her life — even a high school teacher — that she wasn’t good at school, that she would never make anything of herself.

After dropping out of high school, checking herself into a boot camp for struggling youth, and trying to join the Army, Cohea ended up here, looking for her high school equivalency diploma. Within months, even before she earned that diploma, she became a scholarship-winning, “A” student on her way to a college credential in forestry.

The above excerpt was originally published in The Boston Globe. Click here to view the full article.

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Authors

Marcella Bombardieri

Former Senior Fellow