How strong is your voice? By Hollie Davis

How strong is your voice?

The most powerful decision teenagers make is in determining what college they go to. Which is ironic because teenagers often feel disenfranchised and are discredited with authority figures. When we pick our colleges we make choices about our financial future, our safety, our health, our mental stability, our social lives, and our academics for the next four years at least. According to Bloomberg-Businessweek your college selection can have dramatic implications in earning potential they write “Top earners with Yale degrees typically earned $326,000 a year compared with the best-paid graduates of, say, Kent State University, a respectable public university in Ohio, who earned $124,000, on average.” The case in pretty well laid out for the economic benefits of college people with college degrees the unemployment rate is 2.4% according to the labor department and have a lower risk of credit card, medical, or even student loan bankruptcy.

            I would not see the benefits of a quality education had not my parents instilled it to me early on. So it blew my mind that there were parents who didn’t believe college was important and that it was even a waste of money. At work while we were busy stuffing envelopes my co-workers complained about how in Latino households education is not the focus but getting the bills paid in the short term was the focus. One co-worker said “In a lot of Latino households it’s like get good grades through high school but then get a job and start paying bills and start a family I have to beg my mother to take me on college visits.” I don’t believe that every Latino households believe this and I am not interested in stereotyping people. Their strength and the power of their conviction was amazing because to be told something your entire life by people who raised you and believe the opposite is courageous. Developing a strong voice is built by people who believe that being independent and self-sufficient is in your best interest, This is why I am so fascinated with the strength of these two young women. It’s easy to have beliefs when they are validated by your environment however when they aren’t that is a sign of a revolutionary. 

 By Hollie Davis (Art Institute of Chicago Youth Ambassador)