Lystra Small-Clouden does not want this story to be about her race. The 63-year-old mother of four from Horsham wants it to be about for-profit colleges that leave students buried in debt. About how she started an online Ph.D. program in 2010 after seeing an ad that she could finish in three years. About how it took five years, about how she graduated with $180,000 in debt that’s doubled since .
Temple University graduate Ewan Johnson s mother borrowed so he could go to college.
Growing up in a small town near Trenton, N.J., Ewan Johnson said there were birthdays when his mother couldn t afford to buy presents for him and his sister, but she did her best by baking cookies. There were times when she worked overtime in her job helping people with disabilities.
“I come from a low economic background. Going to college was literally my only way out,” Johnson says.
But like many students, Johnson said, the maximum in Pell Grants he received wasn t enough to pay for living expenses and tuition and fees at Temple University, where he earned a bachelor s in strategic communications and political science.