A lot of the students I serve come from low-income families, and their challenges are often the typical challenges with living a low-income life. You know, big one for me, I teach juniors and seniors and a lot of them feel pressure to work themselves, while being in school. And for me, the teacher, I can see that the long-term utility of like working two shifts while being a junior, which is a critical year of school, is not a good long-term decision. But for them, they feel the understandable, immediate financial crunch and want to make a little extra money and bring it home.
Another huge barrier in America is just racism, the effect of racism, on black and brown students who you know, see things like episodic police brutality and a lack of like ambitious work pathways as huge barriers to excelling through school and beyond.
People are talking more about you know, does it really matter whether one goes through a traditional pathway? Maybe there could be a variety of pathways that could support people most effectively, at a variety of speeds or in a variety of locations. You know, maybe you don't need to be in person to do your training kind of thing. And that's totally different. I mean, even 15 years ago it was very much like, here's how we do it and if you don't want to do it this way, you just need to find another career.