As a society, we’re generally focused on achievement. We celebrate when a person gets into college. And we celebrate when they graduate. In between, when it comes to winning monthly, weekly, and sometimes daily battles - like structuring your day to attend classes and study for tests; and how to budget to afford tuition, books, transportation, food, and rent – well, we typically leave people to figure that out on their own.

It turns out that’s an okay strategy for students who start out with reasonable financial resources. But, not so good for those who don’t. For low-income students who get into college, only 12%  graduate with a 4-year degree.

That’s the statistic that largely motivates an organization called College Beyond. College Beyond works with low-income students to assist them with finances, coaching, and navigating college to stay in the race to the finish line. Each year they work with over 350 New Orleans college students.

Clara Baron-Hyppolite is Executive Director of College Beyond.

If you go to college and get a degree in arts, communication, or journalism, you might want to go work for a newspaper.

The reason we still call it a newspaper is that it was originally news printed on paper. Today, most of us read the newspaper on a digital device, but there are still people who like to read the newspaper in its original form, on paper.

For those folks, they can subscribe and get the paper delivered. Or, here in New Orleans, they can pick up a copy of The Times Picayune by slipping quarters into a slot in a metal box, open a hinged door, and take a newspaper off the stack inside.

If you’re one of the people who gets your paper this way, have you ever wondered how the paper gets into the box? The answer to that question for 60 boxes around New Orleans is, Hector Garcia. Hector is an independent contractor who buys papers from the publisher of The Times Picayune, puts them in the boxes, then collects the quarters.

College Beyond is never going to be Apple or Amazon – but they just might be helping someone graduate who goes on to change the world.

And Hector is never going to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism, but without people like him nor would anybody else, because the news would never get disseminated.

It’s true, we typically reserve accolades for people who are visibly successful, but the intensity of the spotlight is not a measure of true worth. In Hector and Clara's cases, the forgotten middle is a noble place to be. 

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

 

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