One of the phrases that bothers me the most is “just as good as.” In the context of segregation, the public and the Supreme Court agreed that “just as good as” wasn’t good enough.

But we use this phrase when it comes to college. Colleges that do not graduate students on-time or at all and load students with debt are seen as just as good as those that don’t. Hundreds of colleges graduate students in four years and fully fund them, but we tell students that a college that takes twice as long to graduate students and does not fund a student is just as good. We tell students with competitive credentials that not earning a degree and getting a vocation that barely pays and does not allow for advancement is just as good as high-paying, high-growth careers. We tell students that taking the more difficult courses and placing higher expectations on themselves is too much and they can do something with their lives that’s just as good as what their over-resourced peers with worse grades, have access to.

If you’ve read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, this should sound familiar. It’s in Chapter 2: “Mascot” where Malcolm’s teacher tells him that being too ambitious is something reserved for White people. Of this interaction, Malcolm X recalls, “[…] I was still not intelligent enough, in their eyes, to become whatever I wanted to be” (38).

There is an irony to quoting Malcolm X while having this photo to the right. But I intention is to underscore how institutions deny agency to students while insisting on experiences that are particularly agentic. By this I mean that we know the importance of earning a college degree. We know how important the academic and social skills are to a plethora of careers. Yet, despite a student’s best intentions, we deny access to these degrees, systemically, emotionally, and financially.

When I meet families, I tell them that my intention isn’t to force students into college. It’s to remove the hurdles so that a student can make that decision for themselves.

That, for me, is the point of Navega. Students are not broken. We just help them to navigate a system that is.

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Vielka Cecilia Hoy
Founder