Rethinking College Admissions with Jennifer Ledwith

Richard Dodds:
0:00

 

This is Still Talking Black, a show about discussing issues about blackness from a black point of view. I’m your host, richard Dodds, and this is episode one of season two. I am so happy to be back and giving new episodes to everyone. As some of you can see, new episodes of season two are going to be available on YouTube, but if you like the audio version only, don’t worry, it’ll still be available on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you get your podcast from. On this episode, I’m joined by Jennifer Legweth of Scholar Ready. We discussed the best ways to get your kids into college, how they need to prepare, and she tried to do it by spending as least money as possible. Without any further ado. Here we go.

Jennifer Ledwith:
0:45

Hi, I’m Jennifer Legweth of Scholar Ready and I make grown men cry. For the past 18 or 19 years, I have prepared students for PSAT, SAT, ACT and state standardized exams. I’ve also helped students to improve their literacy and their math skills in the classroom. The reason I say I make grown men cry is because I have had fathers and, of course, I work close with mothers as well, and what’s notable is that I’ve watched grown men witness their children achieve milestones academically that they did not believe that they could achieve, and when they did, they cried. So, among all the wonderful things that I do for my students, I make grown men cry. How you doing, Richard.

Richard Dodds:
1:31

Hey, I was not expecting to grow man cry. I was like where you going with this? Like why are you making grown?

Jennifer Ledwith:
1:38

men cry.

Richard Dodds:
1:39

What are you doing? I was like that just caught me off guard.

Jennifer Ledwith:
1:45

I’m like bro, I was like why is she making grown men cry? What is she?

Richard Dodds:
1:48

doing? What is she doing over there?

Jennifer Ledwith:
1:52

When my books. What can I do with a book? Are you throwing books at me and making them cry? Absolutely not.

Richard Dodds:
2:03

Oh man. So when we start to think about like school readiness, like when kids are graduating from high school and they’re preparing, what are some of the things that we’re not doing to prepare our kids properly to be ready to go on to that next level, whatever that next level might be?

Jennifer Ledwith:
2:23

So we have to think about whatever that next level may be after high school, whether it’s going straight into the military, going into the workforce, going to college or going to a trade school. We have to remember that these that a degree or a trade certificate or experience in the military, or even just that first job out of high school those are tools. We have to remember that those are tools, are components of a larger plan and what we need to do is sit down and think about well, what’s the end goal here? What career are you interested in? When you talk with kids, ask them what careers are they interested in, and expose them to different careers and map out a journey to get there.

Richard Dodds:
3:13

Do you think kids at that age really know what they want to do? Like, for instance, like when I was, when I was getting ready to go to college, like one, I was pretty much prepped like you are going to college when you graduate from high school, that wasn’t really even an option, it was like a foregone conclusion. But the other thing is that, like my parents, like because of the things I like to do, it was pretty much thought that all right, you’re going to be an engineering, you’re going to be a computer engineer. And I was in school for multiple years to be a computer engineer until I was like, no, this is not, this is not what I want to do. So, like at that age, you know like you barely know who you are at that age Like how can we like help prepare our kids for like a choice that you know that’s a, that’s a big choice. Like trying to figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life at A-Z.

Jennifer Ledwith:
3:59

I would say it’s important to expose students to, to different careers. For example, if so, with you having with with your parents expecting you to have, wanting expecting you to become a computer engineer, and then you pursued that, and you pursued it like weren’t you years into that degree.

Richard Dodds:
4:18

I was. I was years into that. I was almost had that degree. I should probably go finish it. That’s how close I was.

Jennifer Ledwith:
4:25

See, yeah, yeah, and I think what would be beneficial is to to if, if you know that engine, if, if engineering is on the horizon, or if your folks believe that or parents believe that engineering or whatever career is on their students horizon, they should have them go and participate in like a, you know, maybe like a summer computer engineer engineering camp or an engineering camp, have them shadow and engineer during the day to have a, to get a feel for it. Another thing is you have these in various high schools. I know, at least in Texas, where I am, we have career and technical education high schools and programs that are very robust. For example, I have a student who wants to pursue a career in medicine and she is actually taking a class to learn to become an EMT. And that’s look, when she goes through that program, either she’s going to really really like it or she’s she’s not going to or she’s not going to like it. I think I mean, even if people want to become teachers, they need to go and, you know, experience the classroom and experience kids in the classroom. I remember someone I had a colleague who was the head of a college of education and she was or the department of a college of education and her interns. One of the interns said I don’t like children and I’m like, well, if you’re, if you’re, if you’re trying to be a teacher, you you have okay. So then this is where I mean, hopefully she decided not to pursue education and she went and did something else. But I think it’s important to if they, if students have an inkling, if kids have an inkling of something they’d like to study, put them on a program to to help them to understand that they want to do it. I know I had a friend who’s very good and often when we have students, when we see students who are really good at math, parents will steer them toward engineering. And I had a friend of mine who’s whose parents you know, said okay, well, you like engineering, go do a summer program. And he said that’s the best thing he ever did, because he realized that he did not like engineering. And and he actually went to college and studied finance and he, you know, he worked as a portfolio analyst for some time and and that that’s what we have to do. We have to really expose people, because that that’s serious, like if you especially some degrees. And that’s why it’s important to have a plan, because when you think about like, for example, dentistry, dentistry you know people should shadow dentists and and go to a summer program and and get experience, that there are missions, trips where students can work in medical clinics and it’s there. You don’t have to leave, you don’t have to go to, you know, puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic to do those things there are. There are volunteer opportunities stateside that will allow a student to see what it’s like to be a dentist. And when they and then they can say, okay, well, oh well, oh, this is what it’s like to be a dentist. Okay, well, I really like this. Or they may say, oh, I don’t like this because, if you, because if you, you know, because if you go to dental school and you rack up, you know what is it like? 100s of thousands of dollars and student loan debt, how are you going to pay that off? But be a dentist? So, so that that’s what I think. I think we really have to get figure out ways to expose students to the practicalities of the careers that interest them.

Richard Dodds:
8:00

Yeah, that’s a good point, and yeah, and I never had the opportunity. I don’t even think that, that never even crossed my mind. Even now, like oh go shadow some engineers. You know see, if you can do that type of stuff, I don’t. I don’t know how many of those opportunities already readily available. I feel, like to the people that they usually are. That kind of stuff, especially for those kind of careers that it is readily available for, that usually don’t look like us. Yeah, unfortunately so it’s kind of like we’re trying to figure it out as we go. which is kind of unfortunate, but I hope, as we as a community continue to grow is a lot of black engineers and scientists and like if we can start to be able to get people in and just that way of thinking, like that’s just something I never even thought about, but like colleges, like so expensive. Now you know what I mean. And the thing is is that when you think, when I think about college, like I, almost at a certain point I have a hard time like recommending college to high school and high school students, especially when they’re unsure of what they’re trying to do. And then, even with that, it’s like some parents prepare their kids to go into a field that they may not love but will pay the bills, you know what I mean so it’s like a. It’s like a disconnect. Do you go for something that you might not like but it’s going to get you financially where you want to go? Or do you pay the same amount of money sometimes like, like our close amount of money to do something where you’re not even going to make the amount of money that you pay to get the degree you know? Like what is that? What does that job?

Jennifer Ledwith:
9:36

So it’s kind of like, you know, if there’s not, how can? It’s like, well, can we really recommend someone spending $100,000 on an education and they might come out making you know a small fraction of that in their first few years of their career. So I think that goes to, and there are a couple of books that I’ve read about applying to college, and there’s one by Ron Lieber and I think it’s called what you’ll pay for the price, or what you’ll pay for college. And then there’s this other book by these two brothers about and I can’t I wish I would have brought it in my office with me but it’s about advising African American families on helping their, helping their, their, their children plan for college and what one of the things that they both have in common is. People have to ask Well, why are you going to college? Why are you going to college? And I think what really underscores, what should really underscore the conversation. So here are the questions like why are you going to college? Are you going to college because you’re trying to get a well paying job? Are you going to college because you want to make connections? Are you going to college because it’s a social thing and it’ll you know it because it looks good like it looks good, you know. You know, oh, you know your son has a degree in this from such and such colleges. That’s why the is that why the student is going to college? Or is a student just really going to college just to really just stretch his or her academic horizons? The, so I mean. So everybody had. Or maybe there’s some other reason why the family is interested in pursuing their kiddo pursuing a college education. But one thing I learned a long time ago so I have a background in financial planning and then I’ve also worked with families in preparing their kiddos for exams and so forth and tutoring for nearly 20 years now and one thing I’ve learned is that I cannot argue with people’s values. So, you know, I can look at some situations and I can say, well, now, I wouldn’t do that, like I would. Just, you know, I can say, well, no, there’s nowhere. But I but I learned a long time ago I can’t argue with people’s values. So it, I mean you, I mean I’ve seen people send their students to college to major in things that they could have. You know, they could have gone to college. Whatever they were doing, they could have done it more affordably in their home states they could have it’s like it’s. I’ve seen it to where it’s a choice between free and $200,000. And I’ve seen them buy past free and go to the $200,000. So for those people, you know, you can’t really argue with the values for with. For some people, like you know, I mean, how can you really? I mean because we know that there are some professions that don’t require college education, where those professions, people in those professions, are making more money than people with and with a college education. So that’s why I say it has to be part of a plan. It has to be, you know, these degrees, the certifications, the classes that students taking, these are all tools, a part of a greater plan. And if really people just sitting just map it out and think about it, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe a college education isn’t appropriate for what that student is trying to do. But there has to be a plan and sometimes people are like you know, I would say there, you know, there may be some majors that aren’t. You know, we think about majors where people would think that they would have, they’re going to make money. It would be, you know, engineering, business, medicine, those fields. But if a student wants to pursue a major in, I’m going to just throw something out journalism, that or or philosophy or something like that. Students really need to have a plan. Okay, how are you going to use that journalism degree? You’d have internships throughout the summers. You need to figure out, like you know, talk with a student about okay, if you get a journalism degree, this is what your first year is going to look like as a, let’s say, you go. I have former students who are local television anchors for new stations in in smaller, small to midsize TV markets and that pay is it’s low, it’s low it’s low, it’s low, it’s low.

Richard Dodds:
14:10

Your face said it all. I was like eh.

Jennifer Ledwith:
14:14

It’s low starting out, so they need to. I think it’s helpful if students I would never discourage a student from pursuing a goal I would just say, okay, well, now this is what this looks like. And like I tell my students because I’ve had financial planning conversations with my students and I tell them I say, hey, you look like you like nice things. I know you like nice things and that’s okay. So you know, based on what you’re trying to do and you know, by the way, this is what your student loan payments are going to look like. Where do you plan to live? How do you plan to live? What do you plan to drive? And it, I mean it’s. I think that’s why I said I think it’s so important for us to really, you know, sometimes we can get so caught up in you know oh, you got to go to the college because everybody else is going to college. Well, you have to do what everybody else is doing or you don’t have to do something just because everyone else is doing it. We also get caught up in in like, oh well, if you go to college, then guaranteed, you know you’re going to have like your life is going to be like worry free and you’re not going to ever have to be poor and struggling, all that which we know that it’s not.

Richard Dodds:
15:26

We know that’s not guaranteed. You’re not going to be guaranteed a job out of college anymore.

Jennifer Ledwith:
15:29

No, you can’t. So I think it’s that’s why I think it’s important for us to really look at this as okay, hey, maybe maybe a college degree back in the day was a guarantee, like, hey, if you have this degree, you can go, at least you can go, and you know, teach. Or you can go and do you know, you can go get a job as a, you know, in a, in a, in a lab. But things aren’t like that anymore and that’s how we have to really think about stop looking looking at, look at the degrees as tools and not and not the whole plan. We have to have a whole plan. We really sit and talk and be intentional about what this all looks like and really talk about what the financial aspect looks like. And it’s really. I know it’s hard to discuss financial matters with people who’ve never paid as much as a water bill, so they don’t understand that like their minds. They can’t wrap their minds around like, okay, well, you have this student loan payment and it’s $800 a month. They can’t. They can’t comprehend that. So I would advise parents to I don’t know what kind of conversations parents have about money. In my family we grew up having very I grew up having very converse candy conversations with adults about money. I remember asking my mother for something and she was like Jennifer. She said, jennifer, this is how much I bring home every two weeks. And you know, my mother’s a semi-retired math teacher. At the time she was a whole full math teacher and of course I tutored math. So you know, we’re very good, we’re both very good at math. And she was like Jennifer, you know, and she told me how much money she was bringing home every two weeks. She told me how much the bills were. She said my mortgage is this, the light bill is this, the bill is this, the car notice is all that. And when I heard that and so she told me that and I was like, okay, well, that means the answer is no.

Richard Dodds:
17:33

Long answer to get to know.

Jennifer Ledwith:
17:34

To know, yes, but I understood why it was no. And you know I grew up with a lot, you know, with women who were, who own their own homes. Either they were divorced, widowed or, you know, never had been married, but they own their own homes. And so I would grow up among women who would talk about how much it would cost to get something repaired or have something maintained or so forth and so forth. So it was, and my grandfather, you know my grandfather would encourage me to. He encouraged my interest in the stock market. So I grew up in a family that was that talked about money and was very real about money. I know everybody else isn’t like that. I had to kind of as a. So I’m a certified financial planner and so I spent a few years in an office with a bunch of people who are at financial advisors and you know we were sitting in the office and just talk about our finances like it’s nothing. And so I had to realize that. I had to like realize, jennifer, you can’t just ask people when you meet them if they have life insurance. You can’t just ask them.

Richard Dodds:
18:38

You know so because I’m very that’s a big one too, yeah, especially in our community.

Jennifer Ledwith:
18:43

Yeah, we have to. We have to be very candid about money and and who’s gone, who’s paying what you know for that experience, because a lot of times parents aren’t like. During the college application process, parents will tell their kids oh you know, if you do well in school, then you know you can go to whatever college you want to. And I think these parents make this promise to their kids. You know, not having attended college for 30 years or 35 years and not realizing the cost or at all Huh.

Richard Dodds:
19:19

I said or at all, or at all or at all.

Jennifer Ledwith:
19:22

And I think they think that because you know, I think they they, and so they feel guilty because it’s like well, you know, we promised you that you can go to whatever school you wanted to go to, and so now we have to make that happen. I’ve worked with parents who’ve done that and I’ve observed parents. I had a parent call me one time. Her daughter did very well on her her entrance exams and she was like but Jennifer, like she’s not getting any money. And I was like well, what do you mean? She’s not getting any money and any money offered to her. And she was like, and I said, well, what schools is she applying to? And then she said, oh, the California schools. And you know, and we’re in Texas. And I was like, well, what about the Texas schools? Oh, they all gave her money. And I’m like, well, and she was, but we told her that she could go to college in California if she did everything she was supposed to do. And I’m just like and so that’s kind of like, I mean that’s rough, like how do you tell a kid Like I can’t do? And so that’s why it’s just good to have conversations, just from the beginning, like I had a convert, I had a family and the dad was I mean, the dad was the dad was straight up from from from day one. He was straight up with his daughter from day one. And you know, she, you know he was like you’re not going to that school because I don’t care what you do, but in two years I’m getting, I’m going to retire. He was like I don’t care what you do. And you know, and she, she, she attended. She attended a less expensive university and you know her loan. She may have had a few loans, but in low amounts, but but she did OK, she came out better. So I think we have to really have that conversation about money, about you know who’s paying for what, and just be and just really think about it. Because if you and that and that goes to your original question how can, how can we in good conscience, Ask high school graduates to go to college when you know they may pursue a degree? Forget about, are you going to go to the more expensive school or the less expensive school? It’s your original question is are we going to go to college at all? And that’s why I think it’s important to really talk with them and see what they want to do. You know, because if you have them, if they just go to college because someone told them to go to college, then they’re not going to be serious. And I mean they can. And let’s say, you know, and maybe maybe they need to work for a little while to decide what they want to do. I’ve seen students, I’ve seen people work for a little while and then they return, you know, and then they go to school. When, if they choose to go to school and and they do well, they I mean, they’re more serious and they do well. But we need to. I would say, if you’re going to write a tuition check, if anyone is going to go to college day one, they need to walk on campus with a plan. Now is the plan going to change Absolutely? But you need to have a plan and you need to talk it out and think of other ways. The degree is just a tool. Are there other tools that can help the? You know, that student reaches her goals? I mean, and that’s why and that’s. And often I and I know some people are like oh well, you know, my teenager won’t tell me anything and they won’t talk to me. They won’t listen to me, find other people in their lives that they’re listening to, like they are listening to someone and not their little friends. But not because they’re just as lost. But I would say the the, not their friends, but certainly their other teachers, mentors, family members that the students that the kiddos respect. Have them talk to them to help them to find their way.

Richard Dodds:
23:37

I think you said a lot in that, answering that question. I think one of the biggest things that you said is like making a plan and knowing what you’re gonna do. What’s your degree Cause sometimes I feel like we I’ve seen people go after their degree because they wanna work a job and then they realize in the middle of that degree that the degree that they’re getting is not gonna help you work that job. You don’t even need this degree. Even though I had a financial advisor on it, he was like you don’t need a degree in finance to do this, you just need a certification.

Jennifer Ledwith:
24:07

He’s like hold up.

Richard Dodds:
24:08

You mean I don’t have to, oh man. So it’s so many times, like when you say, like, make a plan. I feel, like in our culture. Specifically, a lot of the people when I was in school, a lot of people that I’ve seen with the plans, did not look like me. They had plans down to the T, they knew what they were gonna do they knew what their degree was. They weren’t messing around, they weren’t going to discover. They came in to get their degree, they graduated, they worked for this company, this company, this company. And even you talking about the people in the newsroom it’s like the small newsroom, like if you have a plan, you can work in a small newsroom for three to five years and then like, all right now I have something to go pitch to a big network or something, or learn the skills that I need to be a producer. Now my pay is going from maybe like 40,000 to 80,000. It’s just like having that plan, just like really pushing in such a different position. And I think it’s so important to talk about it, like earlier, especially in our community, and actually have community where it’s like even though, like I think I talked about it before like my parents knew I was going to college, but they really didn’t know how to prepare me to go to college.

Jennifer Ledwith:
25:22

You know what I mean.

Richard Dodds:
25:23

Like I didn’t really know what to expect. There wasn’t anybody I could talk to like, hey, what’s college? Like you know, what I mean. It’s like you go and you figure it out and that’s that kind of cultural knowledge that we lose, that other like cultures tend to have to where. This is what college is like. I know you’re going to get distracted, I know you’re going to party, but this, this, this, this, this and you want to do this and we miss a lot of that. And I just feel like we as a community need to work harder and get in that back and properly preparing Cause it’s like you’ve been hearing you talk about it and I’ve been at school for a long time. It seems like like whoa, like have a plan, wow, like that’s crazy, like a plan that’s great, but yeah, so, like a lot of that stuff, you said like I totally, I totally am with you and a lot of times sometimes you don’t even need a degree and you go, you spend 60, 70, 80 grand on a degree and then you say, oh, I want to, I want to write for a blog, and it’s like, oh, you didn’t need that degree, huh.

Jennifer Ledwith:
26:21

Yeah, I mean it’s, yeah, it’s, and even if you and even I would say that a part of the plan, because you said they were, because you talked about the advisor who realized that they didn’t have to study finance, and you talked about how you know the people you had gone to school with who don’t look like us, had a plan and they went in. They had a plan, they went in and got their degree and move, move, move. And then even like, if you do go work in a newsroom, like, okay, well, I can stay here for three to five years and I picked up these skills and then I can move on and do this next thing. That’s why it’s so important to have a plan. But also I would say, you know, if you have a degree, you know, often people have these arguments about which is better a trade or a degree, and why not both? Why can’t you do both? Why you know, if you’re able to do both, you know, do both. And so that’s why we have to really, we have to really think about stuff. But I think also we have to remember that we have to be intentional about these things. That’s just thank you, that just because we are, just because our kiddos are going to maybe a private school or a school in an affluent neighborhood. We have to understand that that’s not enough, like it’s not enough, for sometimes we think that just because that school name is on that diploma, that, or just because we go to a school with more resources than schools that you know, or like a Title I school, you know, parents might think, okay, well, they’re gonna have it made, all I have to do is just, you know, drop them off and they’re gonna do just as well as their white counterparts, which is not the case, because what they don’t realize is that their white counterparts are hiring me because they have these people, have tutors, and they’re not going to tell you and they probably have college. I’m not a college consultant. I don’t advise people on degrees and schools and so forth. I create the conditions to help them to be able to realize those aspirations, but I don’t advise in that way. But people have college advisors as well, and so we have to be very intentional about, very intentional through the whole educational process. You know when the child, you know, starts, you know, before that child is in kindergarten. We have to be very intentional about you know. Of course we want to be intentional about school selection but we want to be intentional about the education that the student is getting and what kind of opportunities that student might be exposed to.

Richard Dodds:
29:15

Yeah, I love that word intentional because I was speaking about it like actually earlier today, thinking about in my career how it’s times where I haven’t been intentional and just being intentional about the skills that you want to learn and the things that you take away can keep you from working in the same position for 10 years, versus working in a position for two years and then getting elevated to another position and learning what you need to do there for three years and then get elevated to another position. So I love the intentionality, especially when it comes to that. This is a question that you’ve heard me ask before.

Jennifer Ledwith:
29:51

Okay, okay, and.

Richard Dodds:
29:52

I’m very curious to get your take on it.

Jennifer Ledwith:
29:55

Okay.

Richard Dodds:
29:55

Because I talked about it on another episode when I bought my house. Okay, I had to take a class.

Jennifer Ledwith:
30:04

Okay.

Richard Dodds:
30:05

To learn about mortgages.

Jennifer Ledwith:
30:07

Yes.

Richard Dodds:
30:08

Now we have 18 year old kids who probably ain’t never had a credit card you talked about never paying a bill signing up to possibly take out a student loan that, at the end of the day, is probably gonna be as much as the first house I purchased.

Jennifer Ledwith:
30:23

Right right, right right.

Richard Dodds:
30:24

So should there be a class for people who are considering going to college and take before they get that student loan? Should we be putting them in class? Because, like back in the day, like we were told, like my dream was like everything I heard growing up you go to school, you get your degree, you get out, your life is great, you got a job, you’re gonna get paid 20 times more than like that’s what I was told Like straight up, like that was the narrative. Go to school, get an education, get a good job, you get a pension, you retire, you be that ain’t like that, no more. No, it’s not so student loans is as far less of a guarantee. So, with that risk involved, do 18 year old students, before they sign that student loan paper, should they need to take financial classes so that they properly understand what they’re doing on?

Jennifer Ledwith:
31:12

social. They need to take classes, not just financially. They need to take classes on, you know, the academic demands and the social demands of college, because all that’s gonna, because if you can get that academic and that social piece right, you might not be there as long as you can save money. So, yeah, so to your point, when you buy a house, you had to take a class. And you know another thing that’s interesting when we buy houses, we think about all the professionals we have to enlist to before we can get to that closing table. We have to have an inspector, we have to have a, an appraiser, they have to have this, you have to have somebody come out and do a survey. A title company is involved. And then we have the mortgage broker, the mortgage company, we have the realtor, I know, and then the people who teach the home buying education classes, and I know I missed some other folks in there. And you know, to get to that, the closing table, yeah, I think. Yeah, when I think about my home, I’m sure that I’m sure that I have students whose college educations, the cost of their college educations, are eclipsing what my home costs. Yeah, we do, we need to have a full, we need to have. We need, for we need to have honest conversations and honest classes with students about what it takes to go to college and really about the financial aspect. There’s a I used to we had a. There’s a thing I used to participate and even I participated in Houston called Money Live, and at Money Live, money Live was a real world money simulation and students would, would you know, choose their, their educations, their loans, the car they were driving, their where they lived, and that helped them to have an understanding of what that money was like. Because, from what I’ve observed about my students, many of my students are very tight when it comes to their own money. They are, they are willing to spend left and right when it comes to their student, their parents’ money, but let those students get a job and they are extra tight with their money and and that’s what we have to. So, if we were to think about what that would look like, we need to have them and in fact, I participated in and I actually helped write this program for an organization called Skills for Living and we it was a real world program and we had them choose careers and you know, educations and you know, and then where they were living. It was a. It was a similar thing with Money Live, but this particular event was like a was a class, it was a summer long class and we also introduced the idea of income taxes. And that’s what? Yeah, we, we need to have that, we need to have them, we need to have them go through and learn. Like you know, begin with the end in mind. Okay, so, if you say you want to pursue this kind of profession, then then this is what this looks like financially and okay, and this is this is. These are your income taxes. And after you pay your income taxes, these are your bills. And oh, this is the school you wanted to attend. Okay, so, this is so because you, because you didn’t, because of you know whatever, maybe you had a scholarship, maybe you didn’t, but this is how much you know you’re going to pay and this is how, this is what your life is going to look like. We need to have them. And then we need to say, okay, well, now, what are some things you can do to improve your financial? What are some things you can do at age 15 to help improve your life? When you’re a 25 years of age and you know, then I think that’s when we need to talk with them about okay, well, here’s some things you can do if you want to go to college to defray the cost of college. There’s, you know, there’s dual credit. There are advanced placement classes. There are, you know, there are scholarships. Okay, so what do you have to do to get these scholarships? And so we have people, you know, because what I’m having a hard time with this summer is, or even just I would say, like you know, post COVID or not post, you know, the onset of the COVID pandemic what I’m having. I am struggling with helping my students to understand that what has helped them to be successful in high school will not help them to be successful in college, because their grades do not reflect what they really know. And there have been studies that say that. You know, we know, we know that we have in America, we have, a small percentage of students who are reading at or above grade level. We have a small percentage of students. It’s not even I don’t. I have to look at the numbers. You can look at the the America’s report card and pull those numbers, but I know in Texas it’s like maybe, maybe, maybe, 20%, maybe, or maybe it’s low, it’s it’s 90 and 50% reading above, at or above grade level. Same thing with math. They’re not where they should be with math. The class of the current class that I think it’s class of 2026, maybe in Texas Over half of them. When they took the US history, the state exam for their US history in the eighth grade, over half of them failed that exam. So, yeah, so, and so we know these numbers, but no parent believes that their child is in that number, and so there’s this big disconnect when they get ready to take these. Scott, look, we talk about finances and a big way to help pay for college. A big way is still, these schools are still giving money based on test scores. They’re still they’re giving money based on class-ranked GPA activities. Things are kind of a little more holistic now, but these schools are still relying on these test scores, and I mean the thing is, the tests have not changed, but the students have changed, and it’s taking longer to prepare students for exams. It’s taking longer and it’s taking more examples. It’s just taking more to prepare them. So we really need to, richard, we really need to get real with what are the financial demands and then what are the academic requirements, because you can go to college and if you’re like a great reader, you can do anything. You can get a scholarship and then you may not be able to pay for everything, but you won’t have as much as due loans At the. Consequently, students who you have, students who are starting college who are not academically prepared and their schools are not being honest with them about the lack of preparedness, and so the students will go to college and then they may not complete their degree and so they graduate with I mean, they leave with all their student loan debt, but they don’t have a certificate or a degree, so they’re going to have to go get a low wage job and they have a low wage job, low wage job, but they have like a mountain of student loan debt. What is? this so we have to be very so. We have to look at and we’re planning for college. Yes, there should be a class on what the finances look like, absolutely. There also needs to be a class on what are the academic requirements. And then also there needs to be a class on, like you know, your social life and your socialization, because many students, you know, haven’t gone through the pandemic and so much of their lives center around social media that they have a hard time, they struggle with interpersonal skills and that’s such a big part of college and somebody needs to teach them those things. We can’t get mad at students for not knowing what they haven’t been taught, and so we really. So when you talk about, hey, we need to have a class that you know, hey, when you buy that house, you have all these professionals. When you go to college, you need to have all these professionals, not just your parents, not just your parents as a God, because if you teens hey, if there were anything like me, I wouldn’t try and listen to my mama when I was their age. Okay, even though my mother went to college, and right. So you know we have to, we need to think about, we need to think about a plan financially, we need to think about a plan like academically, you know like socially and you know interpersonally. And then we also and what should drive that plan? What should drive that instruction is why are you going to college? What do you want to do with your life after high school? Because it may not even be necessary to go to college.

Richard Dodds:
40:17

Yeah, I remember I had someone, an ex’s mother. She wanted me to go back and get a master’s degree, just for, like, like, continue education. You could also network. I’m like I can network for not paying $120,000 to go get a master’s degree. Like, I guarantee you it’s otherwise a network, but once you have that money, once you have your why, you know that you want to go to school. Now it’s a little bit harder, right for minorities to get into school because you know the Supreme Court just struck down affirmative action. What are some things that our kids can do to help increase their chances of getting into a good school?

Jennifer Ledwith:
41:00

What are?

Richard Dodds:
41:00

their options now.

Jennifer Ledwith:
41:02

So when they think about a good school, you have to think about ask why is the school good and for whom is the school good? And you know. So when we talk about so sometimes you know people will look at schools and they’ll say, oh well, you know, this school is number one based on US News World Report, this school is a top eight school and it’s like, okay, well now, why is it a top eight school? Okay, well, it’s because it has it’s very selective, it has a low acceptance rate. It also may have a large number, a great amount of alumni giving. It may also have, you know, students. The students in that class may have a certain, although students may have really high statistics like high GPA, high class rank, high test scores, so that those schools may be ranked, you know, in something like US News and World Report, number five or number 10, or you know they’re ranked highly because of things that have nothing to do with why that student wants to go to college. So when we talk about a good school or a top school, you need to think about why is this school good for me? So that’s number one. So we talk about students getting into top schools. We really need to. You know I mean so, especially with the affirmative action being struck down. So affirmative action, as far as I understand, hadn’t been administered Like when we think of affirmative action, people of color getting special, getting more preferential treatment in the admissions process it hasn’t been in effect in like California in a while. I don’t think it’s been in effect at the university from which I graduated or even some of these schools in Texas. So it’s not. I mean, let’s be clear, this is a sweeping case and it’s going to affect large numbers of students and it’s even going to spill into corporate America and you know other aspects of our society that’s been spilled into corporate America already. Oh wow, what have you?

Richard Dodds:
43:09

seen Law firms, like I’ve seen some law firms get pushed back because of programs that they have that are selected for minorities and they’re saying like, no, that’s not right, you can’t do that, you can’t. So it’s starting it’s already starting to spill in.

Jennifer Ledwith:
43:24

Oh, wow, so in a while. So we have to make sure. So because of that, whoo.

Richard Dodds:
43:32

That’s a lot right.

Jennifer Ledwith:
43:34

It is a lot. And I would say well, you know, black people should go to go to law school and start their own law firms. But I fully recognize that entrepreneurship is not for everyone.

Richard Dodds:
43:48

It is not for everybody. That’s very true. It is not for everyone.

Jennifer Ledwith:
43:53

It is not for everyone, so when people House of culture. Yeah, it’s not yeah. And when people say, you know, we got to own our own businesses and I’m like, yeah, but it’s not for everyone. No matter what your cultural background is, it’s not for everyone. I would say that we talk about getting into good schools. We have to think of students again. They need to go back to that plan. What is the school that’s going to help me to reach my goals and start researching early? What are their requirements? What are these schools looking for? And really, I mean I would say the easy I would say if parents don’t know, or if students don’t know exactly what they want to do, or parents are like, well, I don’t know what my child wants to do, what they can do that will help them to be successful, no matter what they decide, you know now or later on, is that they are strong readers. They, if you can read, you can do anything. If you can read, you can do anything.

Richard Dodds:
44:56

If they banned the books we should be reading, but that’s a whole nother story. That’s a whole, nother story.

Jennifer Ledwith:
45:03

But you know what’s so crazy? You know there is. I mean book banning, of course, is an issue Like I couldn’t imagine not being it, because those books that are on that list are books that I’ve read when I was a kid. But the thing is many of our kids don’t understand what they’re reading period and parents have to. You know, if you can, if your student, no matter what your student decides if they can read, they can do anything. So when it comes to getting into a good college or the college that is good for them, they need to look at the requirements and they need to research like okay, well, how much is this going to cost? How do we pay for this? Are there scholarships? Are there ways to you know how can we make this happen? And really, you know, schools are still looking at, so we look at schools. Schools are still considering a class rank. They’re considering grade point average. They’re also considering the rigor of a student’s coursework. Don’t get it twisted. Everybody knows that a number one in the, you know, the student who graduates at the top of his or her class at one school can have a radically different educational experience from a valedictorian at another school. And we have to make sure that students have to take, like, take rigorous courses. And you know, look, these colleges know what high schools are offering these high schools know these colleges know which high schools are producing students who are academically prepared for college. If you want to know, if you want to know what schools produce students ready for college, go to their college nights. Look at the colleges that are there at the college nights. I had a friend who’s a recruiter tell me this. We went to this. I was volunteering as an alumna to help recruit for my university and that’s what he told me. He said look at the school. And we were at this one school. It’s a medical, it’s a medical magnet school here in Houston area or here in Houston, and multiple Ivy League schools were there striving to recruit. And then, but then you have other schools, like I’ve been to other college fairs in areas that are, you know, affluent and public schools, and I’m looking at these schools and they’re not Ivy League schools. And you know, in fact and I’m not casting aspersions on the military, but there was a military there, not military academies, which that’s a whole nothing. Oh, getting into the military academies, that’s like having an Ivy League education. It’s, it’s the, it’s the rigor of the school. So students need to. So how do students get into top colleges? They need to take, they need to take as rigorous of a course load as they can take. They need to get the highest grades they can get and have a class highest class rate they can get. Now here’s the thing you still have. There still has to be a balance. There still has to be a balance. Students need to be able to be, they need to be able to be kids and enjoy school and enjoy their lives and their families and their friends. So I’m not a, I’m not a believer in students taking, like all, advanced classes. I think that’s too much, but some students can handle it. I think students need to take what they can handle. So you have. So you have the classes, the grades, the class rank. Students also need to prepare for PSAT, sat, act, and they need to take those exams seriously. That’s a component of college admissions and college scholarships. So that’s the academic bucket. Then we go to the activities bucket with leadership. Students need to have, you know, participate in activities where they can take the lead in certain experience, certain clubs, certain activities, and then they also should be doing community service, and if they can work, that’d be great as well.

Richard Dodds:
49:30

Yeah, it’s a lot of stuff that you got to do in order to get ready for college and when I graduated from high school, I applied to one college. I kind of like, just I’m going to one school and one school only and like in retrospect I was probably really, really dumb. I knew my grades were good and I knew I had like that last year of school I was like, oh crap, I like I need to join some clubs and stuff to. And I kind of knew that and I was, but I kind of really just threw my cards on the table Like I just want to go to this one school. Thankfully I got in, but you know that’s that’s probably not the best way to go about it. And, to be honest, the next thing I wanted to ask you about if I was to, if I was going going back to being 18 years old again and I was considering going to college, something that I did not consider. And I didn’t even go on a tour because a lot of people I had I had seen people go on the tour, so I would have considered that HBCU. I really didn’t understand the significance of HBCUs when I was considering colleges. And now especially with everything that’s going on. What do kids need to understand? And considering the HBCU All right.

Jennifer Ledwith:
50:39

So I’m glad you asked that we have a. I’m working with a colleague to put on a, a market missions event, and we’re going to invite HBCU so historically Black College and universities. We’re going to invite representatives from those universities and we’re also going to invite representatives from PWIs or predominantly white institutions. Our students need to understand that HBCUs have a. There’s a rich tradition, tradition of a rich culture in eight from HBCUs. I did not go to an HBCU. I graduated from a PWI. But if it had not been for HBCUs I would not have graduated from a PWI. Because because my, my grandparents graduated from HBCUs, my mother, my aunts, some of my relatives graduated from HBCUs and I mean, in fact, the first time we ever went on a college campus and had someone move in it was at an HBCU. So it was. But but I do know that if I hadn’t, I do know that if it wasn’t for the foundations that and the educations that they got from those HBCUs, I wouldn’t have gone to. I wouldn’t have gone to, I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have gone to college because you know, I had, you know, at HBC. I would say that students need to look into a Black, students need to look into HBCUs and look at what they have to offer. Again, think about what do you want to major in, what do you want to study? Because those professors, you know, when I went to a PWI now let me be clear I had I had professors who cared about me, but I don’t feel like I had a professor who cared about me until maybe my, maybe my second, maybe the end of my second year in college. But you know, my sister started out at an HBCU and she missed class one day and the professor was like where were you? Where were you, ms Ledwin? We missed you. You know, I never, I never got that at my. I knew I can’t even imagine that.

Richard Dodds:
52:53

Like at college, someone saying like you weren’t here, that’s what? How? Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Jennifer Ledwith:
52:58

So it’s a. It’s a sometimes people you know I’ll say that I’ll talk about Xavier. Xavier has a program. Tiny Xavier University in New Orleans is number one. It is the number one college in producing, in sending African American students to medical school and they are so, again, intentional the word of the day is intentional. Xavier is so intentional about helping those students. You know, maybe they have some academic gaps and they help those students. You know, hang on until they can hold on and ultimately, you know, they’re able to be successful. They have programs. I mean HBCUs are those professors are there and they want you to be successful. So they’re, they have programs to help the students be successful. When you go to these PWIs, particularly large PWIs, you know we have weed out courses and and they will tell you like, if you can’t get a job, you can’t get a job. We have weed out courses and they will tell you like, if you can’t make it in, you know, whatever it is biology one or calculus or what have you, you know. Then you know this STEM field isn’t for you. And I just remember at my PWI we had students who were top. They went to a specialized engineering high school and they went to. I think it was like seven of them that started with me and only one of them graduated with a degree in engineering and that and that young lady actually went on to pursue a degree in law, so she’s actually a lawyer now.

Richard Dodds:
54:39

That’s such a shift.

Jennifer Ledwith:
54:41

It is, but we had. But I went to high school with people who were, you know, average students and they went and studied engineering at I know at least one HBCU and they’re practicing engineers now and it’s so, it’s so I would say that HBCUs are, aside from the you know like it’s just like. You know it’s just black, everything which is which is awesome, it’s beautiful. Yes, they that the the academic aspect is. You know there is a there is. The environment is more nurturing. Now I mean, yes, is that? Yes, is the? Are some? Are there some administrative issues? Yes, are there some administrative issues that students are going to experience at an HBCU that they probably won’t experience at an PWI, probably, but yeah, maybe. But I would say I would tell them to give HBCUs a serious look, because they want you to be successful and you know, when those college, when those companies come to recruit at an HBCU, they are looking for to hire African American Applicants, the graduates. But if you go, when you go to PWI, those recruiters are not going there to recruit African Americans. Because I remember having job. I remember having a job interview and you know it was over the phone and this is before social media and everything. And and you know, you know we have a, you know it was on the phone, my white voice and the pre interview. And then I showed up to the interview and I have always looked like this. I have always been black and their faces just dropped their faces dropped when I walked in there. So I don’t think that your you know applicants are going to experience that at a P at an HBCU, because those corporations know who they’re looking for. So I would definitely say look at the HBCUs when they have college tours, go see the college tours. Sometimes my students get hung up with oh this campus is like you know, it’s not as shiny like, the dorms aren’t as new, and da da, da da. I get that. But you know, really, look at what, look look at the academics, look at the supports for the students, because that’s going to make a bigger difference than whether you know you’re, whether you have a brand new, you know recreational center on campus.

Richard Dodds:
57:19

Yeah, my the school that I finished my degree in my bachelor’s degree in when I left a lot of that money that I was paying went to new facilities and it looks like a completely different school. Now I didn’t get to enjoy any of that stuff, but that’s a. That’s a whole other subject, but I went to a PWI. And the thing that I do appreciate about being at a PWI is that I mean, I don’t. I don’t know if it would even be considered a PWI. It was just a melting pot. It was like a little bit of everything there, and, as someone who grew up around a different, a lot of different cultures. I think that’s a really good thing. I didn’t think about it as much because I was like I’m used to this, like it’s different cultures, yeah, yeah, but. But I think for a second I wonder where the balance is, just because, like, I’ve talked to people and I had never, had never crossed my mind to, I was interviewing somebody and he said he went to college and for the first time it was like a mix of people and he was like he had never really been around white people. I never thought about that from a black point of view, like not being around white people because everybody. So, yeah, like thinking about going to like a PWI if you’ve never been. Like being able to interact with the rest of like what other parts of society looks like learning how to move, learning how things work. I think that’s very important. But at the same time, like I’m saying like if I could go back in history, I don’t know, I would probably be on a drum line or something. I’d be at the halftime shows, like I don’t know. I hope, when I have kids and they ready to go to school, that one of them want to go to a HBCU. So I could just be like yeah, baby, you know. Just be proud, Like yeah, let’s do it. Like you living daddy’s dream now.

Jennifer Ledwith:
59:09

And their friends gonna be like. Their friends gonna be like. Is that your dad?

Richard Dodds:
59:14

I’m gonna have the shirt on, like the big sweatshirt like yeah. I’m here like proud HBCU dad, like that’s gonna be me, that could be my future. I don’t know.

Jennifer Ledwith:
59:26

Yeah, it’s, yeah, I think that’s awesome, I think I think we, I think they need to explore it, even though, even if, even though they now, you do have some people who who look down on, you do have folks who look down on HBCUs. You have black people look down on HBCUs thinking, oh, those are just party schools and da da da, every school can be a party school. Every school is a party school, every school is a party school and you know, I often find that people who look down on HBCUs they probably didn’t go to college, so I would be.

Richard Dodds:
59:59

I mean.

Jennifer Ledwith:
1:00:00

I mean that’s what I observed with, because the black people I know who when I’m in the south, so the many of the black people I know who are educated were educated at HBCUs, so so I think they’re worth. I think it’s worth looking at them and again going back to what that family values, what that family wants from a college education, and just going, because sometimes students get so you know, it’s easy for students to get so caught up in what their neighbor is doing like people will call me and they’ll say, oh well, you know, I want you to. You know, prepare Johnny for this test. And I’m like, oh well, how’d you find out about me? Oh well, the neighbor, you know you prepare the neighbor for the test and he scored this and so I’m expecting the same for Johnny. And then I work with Johnny and I’m like I’m like. Johnny is not. Johnny is. Johnny is not giving everything that he needs to give. You know, like the neighbor did so and I saw I say that to say that people have to be honest about what they want, not what you, not what your neighbor wants, like what. So a lot of times in schools when you have students who go to you, have black kids who go to schools that are predominantly it’s not a lot of us there, they may be the only ones there, they may have. A lot of times they’ll be like, ooh, why do you want to go to that school? And da, da, da. And they have to be very strong within themselves and say, well, there’s value in going to school with people who look like me. I mean, I’m not saying that they should rule out a PWI, but I’m saying that they have to go back to okay, what’s the plan? Why do we want to go to college and adhere to that and not worry about what everybody else is doing?

Richard Dodds:
1:02:04

I think that’s so well said. You just really everything you’ve taken from a holistic point of view. Before we close this down, I want to talk a little bit about your company, scholar.

Jennifer Ledwith:
1:02:15

Ready.

Richard Dodds:
1:02:17

What made you start that?

Jennifer Ledwith:
1:02:20

Okay, so I graduated, from the time I was a junior in high school to the time I was a junior in college. I was a junior for over 30 scholarships and I graduated from college. Consequently, I graduated from college with only $1,000 in student loan debt. Yeah, my education at the time. Thank you the sticker price. So I was an out of state student because I was like I’m getting away. I was like I’ve been going to the same school with these same people for 12 years. I want to get away. And you know, as soon as I bought a house, I bought a house right behind my own middle school.

Richard Dodds:
1:02:57

I was like I’m going to get away. There you go oh there you go. I’m going to say when.

Jennifer Ledwith:
1:03:03

A way to come back. I miss you guys. It’s not that good over there.

Richard Dodds:
1:03:05

When a way to come back.

Jennifer Ledwith:
1:03:10

And we, and so I said, and I knew I wanted to go away. I knew the only way I was going to be able to go away to school is if I’d apply for a scholar. I earned scholarships because my mother made at the time. She was a single parent and she made too much money to qualify for and she wasn’t getting child support, and she made too much money to qualify for financial aid and not enough money to write two checks to college because I have a twin sister and so I you know, so I applied. I had. What worked for me is that I am, first of all, I’m incredibly persistent. I am incredibly persistent, very persistent. I’m very persistent and I would write essays and I’m a very good writer, but I work at it. And also I had good test scores, and so I just applied, and applied, and applied, and my parents didn’t pay for me to go to school. I don’t have, I didn’t have an athletic scholarship. I am more math league than athlete any day of the week. And so I graduated with only $1,000 and soon loan debt. And look, richard, the reason I got, the reason I had student loan debt, is because I wanted to buy plane tickets and not, and not even. It wasn’t even related to finding a job. I had a boyfriend and I wanted to. I wanted to, I wanted to fly. I was done riding a bus, so so that’s why. I had $1,000. I tell my students not to do that, but hey.

Richard Dodds:
1:04:41

I hope it was worth it.

Jennifer Ledwith:
1:04:45

It was worth it. In, in, in, in, in life lessons. It was worth it. It was worth it. Okay, all right, it was worth it in that aspect. But, and you know, when I I thought I didn’t realize how odd that was to graduate, to have an education with a price of $64,000 and graduate with only, and not even needing students. I need those loans, so, and so I decided to start a company to help my students to to do the same thing. I did, so I, I started with. I started, I said I want to help students write essays. And then what I realized is that but then, you know, I told my auntie, I’m starting a business, I’m, I’m, you know, I’m going to be tutoring and I’m going to be preparing students for college. And all she heard was tutoring. And she told her co-workers daughter. She said, or she, she told her co-worker oh, my little niece is tutoring, you need help with math? Oh yeah, call my niece. I had never, never, planned on tutoring math, never. But I’ve been doing algebra. At that point, I have been doing every algebra every year of my life since I started taking algebra and I tutored her and she did really well. She was one of the few students in her freshman class to pass her state math assessment that year and so I just started working more with math. And then I started realizing that my students, I started realizing that exams were a gateway to scholarships. It was a gateway for me, so I put started preparing students for exams and then eventually the essay writing business started coming and in my essay writing class I’m so proud of my students from the essay writing class, my students. I had two students to graduate in 2021 and they’re on four rides to a school here in Houston full academic rides. I’ve had other students get through. I’ve had students score perfect scores on the math sections of the SAT. One of those students is at Fordham University in New York on a full ride. Her sister, who I tutored in math, is at Princeton. I prepared her for I prepared both of them for math SAT. So I’ve been able to. It’s just so and it’s, you know, it’s it’s. The work is hard and it’s getting harder because they don’t have what they need because of the learning disreference from COVID, and it’s also hard because I’m having to explain to them. You know they’re like Ms Jennifer, I don’t understand. They really do not understand, like why just showing up and breathing is not enough and I have to push them, and I have to push them harder and I have to hold their hands a little more, because they’re used to just like showing up and being polite and breathing and getting a grade. And I’m like now look, your parents have hired me to do a job, they’ve hired me to produce some results. So we have, we have to do this until it’s done. But then you know, and sometimes I’ll get to at the end of a very long stretch of working with students, like maybe the end of a semester or something and I’ll say I’m a certified financial planner, maybe I should just do more of that. And then I get these phone calls and they’re like Ms Jennifer, I got this scholarship. Ms Jennifer, I got this test score. And I’m like all right, I’ll do it again.

Richard Dodds:
1:08:22

And so here I am, you’re stuck.

Jennifer Ledwith:
1:08:25

And here I am like 18, 19 years in and it’s just, it’s so gratifying. It’s very hard work I work with. I started working with middle school students and helping them with their literacy and their math skills because I look at what works for, I look at what worked for me, I look at what worked for my students who were able to, who are doing well, and the main thing is that we’re all readers, we’re strong readers and if you can read, you can do anything. And that’s where I am in my career. I’m striving to push these kids to be better readers and better writers. Because even when you know, like you said, you go to college, get your degree life is going to work out. I mean, it’s going to work out the lies, the lies, the lies, and you know people well meaning lies. And but you know, richard, the thing about reading is that when students can read and absorb and understand information for themselves, they can do things that people told them that they couldn’t do. And I know that that’s been my case and I know I’ve experienced that before. And you know what’s the point of an education, why you know, parents want most parents want their children to do better than they did, and, as black people, I would think that that would be about attaining a greater degree of freedom, and the freedom comes through reading, because when you can read, you can do anything.

Richard Dodds:
1:10:17

That’s so beautiful. I really enjoyed talking to you. Thank you for everything You’re welcome, thank you.

Jennifer Ledwith:
1:10:25

Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. It’s still talking black. Thank you for having me.

Richard Dodds:
1:10:31

Again, I would like to thank Jennifer for coming on the show. If you’d like to find out more information about her or her company, scholar Ready, that information will be available in the show notes. Still Talking Black is a Crown Culture and Media LFC production. If you want to find out more about the show, you can find that at stilltalkingblackcom. New episodes will be available on streaming on YouTube, apple Podcasts and Spotify or wherever you get your podcast from. Channel one is still up and available on any of the streaming podcast platforms that they were previously. I’m planning on coming out with these weekly, so I hope to see you right here, wherever you listen, wherever you watch, next week. Until then, keep talking.