Journeys

Erma

I never know what to expect with Secret Lives of Americans – what secrets will be revealed and how their stories will intersect with mine. I'm always a little anxious before watching an episode because I know that the next 30 minutes of television will affect me deeply and change my perspective. It's reality television, but it's not the trashy or gossipy material that we've come to expect from this genre.

This week's episode focuses on Erma, a 21-year-old student in the last semester of her senior year of college in San Pedro, California. You can watch her story for yourself on Friday at 10:30pm on Pivot.

Erma's working towards a bachelor's degree in psychology, and in a matter of a few months, she'll have it. In theory, the prospect of graduation should be incredibly exciting – Erma will be the first in her family to graduate from college. Besides, our entire lives we're told that a college degree is the key to success.

I spent my entire young life obsessing over getting into college. I remember bursting into tears in the third grade because I missed a problem on a standardized math test. "Now I'll never get into Harvard," I wailed as my bewildered teacher tried to calm me down. Two decades later, I'm aware that sounds crazy.

It wasn't enough for me to go to college; I wanted to go to the best one. And my parents' money meant that I could choose any school, anywhere, at any price...provided I was qualified. I never did end up applying to Harvard, but after a painful rejection from Yale, I found my way to Northwestern University, a college halfway across the country from my home in Greenwich, Connecticut. Not accounting for plane flights back and forth throughout the course of the school year, annual tuition clocked in somewhere around $50,000.

My parents paid for everything – tuition, housing, books and supplies, plane tickets, even my sorority dues. I didn't understand the meaning of a dollar until I graduated and moved out on my own.

Maybe that's why I'm so moved by Erma's story. In the words of President Obama, higher education can't be a luxury; it's an economic imperative every family should be able to afford. And yet, through Erma's eyes, it becomes clear that higher education remains a luxury and for those who struggle to afford the costs, it can be a double-edged sword.

But Erma has a secret: she's homeless, and she's living in her car. And the reason she's homeless is because of school.

There's no denying the word "homeless" carries a stigma, and we all have a preconception of what "homeless" looks like. I live in New York City, which has the highest population of homeless people in America, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development [1]. Every day, I see people who live on the street – and yes, I see threadbare clothes, a disheveled appearance, and often, apparent mental illness or substance abuse. But just because that stereotype is the most visible face of homelessness doesn't mean it's the only one. After all, just looking at Erma, you'd never guess. And in fact, there are over 58,000 college students in America who, like Erma, are homeless. They were forced to make a choice between shelter and higher education, and took the long view.

In Erma's hometown, people don't go to college. At best, they graduate from high school and work a low-paying 9-5 job. Or they turn to other less scrupulous ways of making money. But Erma expects more from herself and has her heart set on finishing college.

The problem is that her school costs $20,000 a semester, not including books or rent, which she estimates would be another $5,000. And she's paying for everything on her own. She's done everything she can: she's taken out school loans, she's gotten scholarships from the school, but it's still not enough.

Erma hasn't been homeless throughout her entire college career. Lack of clarity around school financing – what was covered and what was not – led her into this predicament. She took two courses over the summer before senior year, expecting her scholarships to cover the cost. When she discovered her school wouldn't cover summer classes, she was forced to pay for them with the money she had planned to use for rent for the upcoming year.