Louis Barajas (speaker) argues that for students in underserved communities the highest-impact use of family financial resources is to improve the factors that make college completion likely, not merely to save for tuition (e.g., 529 plans). He describes high dropout rates and low bachelor-degree attainment among students from places like East Los Angeles/Boyle Heights and recommends redirecting available family funds toward immediate supports: academic tutoring (math/English), building self-esteem through nonprofits, family/marriage therapy when domestic problems impede schooling, and increasing parental engagement with schools (report cards, parent–teacher events). He stresses the goal is to increase college graduation rates and long-term outcomes (graduate school, professional careers), so planners should prioritize interventions that boost persistence and achievement today.
Chapters
Hey everyone, today we're going to be talking about serving the needs of students in underserved communities, especially when it comes to college planning or saving money for college. The problem is that in most underserved communities, like for example the community that I grew up in, East Los Angeles, there was a huge dropout rate in high school and there were kids actually that dropped out before high school. And most of the kids that actually did graduate from high school that went on to community college, very few of those actually transferred to irregular college and got their bachelor's degree. So how do we use money in the most efficient and effective way to help these kids graduate from college? Because the goal is not to have enough money to pay for college, but the goal is to use money to give the kids a better opportunity to graduate from college. Because that's where we have the biggest impact when they do graduate from college and sometimes go on to graduate school or to become doctors and lawyers and architects and, and some high, you know, as careers with high paying incomes. And so one of the things that we want to do is we want to take a step back and not focus on products like the 529 plans. Whenever I've had somebody, a family in a community like I grew up in Boyle Heights, I would want to ask them if the parents had college education themselves. And most of the time I was working with immigrant parents who wanted the best for their children or willing to do anything for their children. And actually college was something really important for them. And so what we would ask is we would ask our parents to bring in the kids report cards because it sure made a difference whether the kids were getting, you know, A's, B's or C's or even D's. And if they weren't doing well in school and if the parents did have extra money, we would want to use that money for hiring tutors for the kids to get them to get higher grades, to get into some of the better colleges or give them an opportunity to graduate. We'd also kind of take a look at the kids self esteem. We'd want to take a look at the parents engagement in school. Are they going to parent teacher night? Are they helping out with homework? Those are factors that we can work with in essence and use the parents money to, instead of focusing on something for the future that they may not have, is focusing on getting the kids with a proper, what I call cash concepts, the knowledge, ability, skills and habits to graduate from high school and get into college and also graduate from college. Right. And so if the kids lack self esteem or if the kids didn't have parents that were engaged or if there were problems in the family, we would use some of the money that the parents could come up with on a monthly basis and we would hire family or marriage therapists. We would hire.
Nonprofit organizations, organizations to help build the self esteem for the kids. We would hire tutors to get to get the the kids stronger in math and English skills. We would get the teachers involved and we would send them a letter saying that we're working with the parents because one of the goals is to get them to graduate from college and we would see also an interest in the teachers helping these kids out more. So when you're thinking about financial planning for children and underserved communities and if you're a financial planner listening to me or in the financial planning industry, sometimes just understand that saving for tuition is not the most efficient and effective way to use the best dollars for that family. Sometimes it's using the money to get the kids help and the family's help today. Thank you.
