A Subprime Education

>> NARRATOR: Tonight on Frontline, two reports about education in America.

>> The closing of ITT Tech is affecting students... >> NARRATOR: First, for-profit colleges and allegations of fraud and predatory behavior.

>> They were targeting the most vulnerable and desperate people.

>> NARRATOR: Frontline investigates the rise and fall of this once booming industry.

>> MARTIN SMITH: You have termed these students that are signing up for these courses as "subprime borrowers."

>> Yeah, that's a fair characterization of the types of students that are being served.

>> NARRATOR: And later, we've been checking in on Omarina since middle school, where a dedicated group of educators helped to turn her life around.

But even more amazing, they stuck with her.

>> No one in my immediate family has graduated high school and gone into college.

However, I believe I'll be the first one, and they'll be excited and thrilled and they'll be proud of what I've become.

>> NARRATOR: These two stories on this special edition of Frontline.

>> MARTIN SMITH: In the spring of 2012, Hollie Harsh and Brian French were both homeless and looking for ways to improve their lives.

>> We were addicted to methamphetamine for a while, and we ended up in a bad place, going homeless in a tent.

And it was like that for four years.

We just one day said, "We're done."

We had enough.

>> I had started getting online, doing some research about government grants, and I put in my email address, phone number, all the information that they asked for.

>> SMITH: Brian had stumbled on a lead-generating website that collects information from visitors.

Within 24 hours, they got a sales call from Corinthian Colleges, one of the largest for-profit schools in the country.

(phone ringing) >> He has a deep accent, and he tells me that they will grant me a decent amount of money.

And I thought, "We owe this to the kids to move forward in our lives."

>> SMITH: The recruiter offered Hollie and Brian money if they toured a few branches of Corinthian, including Heald College in Concord, California, which was near their encampment.

>> I felt that, like, we almost didn't have a chance to say, "No, let's think about it."

And I do...

If I remember correctly, it was only three or four days that we started school after that.

>> And you said to them, "I'm homeless"?

>> Yes.

And she was like, "Oh, that's fine, a lot of our students are homeless in the same situation."

>> SMITH: In order to enroll, Hollie and Brian signed up for federal student loans totaling $30,000, all to be paid after they graduated.

But they had no money for housing, so they simply moved their tent and belongings to a vacant lot next to campus and began going to class.

>> Welcome to my school!

>> SMITH: Around 1.8 million students are enrolled in for-profit colleges across the country, in mega-schools like Argosy, DeVry, and Grand Canyon University.

You've got $60 million invested?

I started reporting on this sector back in 2009 during the Great Recession.

How big can you go?

With unemployment up, Americans were choosing to go back to school in record numbers.

>> Well, the irony is, Dylan, that when the economy is tough is when people actually look to go back to school and either upgrade their skills or maybe complete their B.A.

>> SMITH: Back then, I had looked at the University of Phoenix, one of the largest universities in the world.

At its peak, Phoenix had enrolled over 600,000 students.

I spoke to a former high-ranking executive.

>> For the first 15 quarters, we broke records and earnings every quarter.

And instead of starting classes in September and January, we started classes in January, February, March, sometimes two in April.

If we had more students than we could handle, we'll build another site and handle some more.

We built campuses by a freeway because we figured that's where the people were.

So if you went by any major freeway in the Southwest, you're going to find a University of Phoenix campus.

We put schools 20 minutes apart because that's about as far as people could drive at rush hour.

>> SMITH: How much could a college administrator for University of Phoenix make?

>> The sky was the limit.

I shouldn't say this.

I shouldn't say this.

>> SMITH: It's a free country.

>> I understand, I understand.

But it's boasting, and I won't say it.

>> SMITH: Well, in terms of how much you made, you did very well?

>> We did very well.

I did better than I ever imagined.

>> Education stocks rallied today, including Corinthian Colleges.

>> SMITH: In an otherwise flat market, for-profits had taken off.

>> Education stocks are moving to the head of the class today.

>> $24 billion-- that's how much the biggest for-profit colleges took in last year in federally-funded student aid money.

>> Not just a job search; a journey.

Not just an interview.

>> SMITH: For-profits were spending big money enticing students to sign up for loans.

>> Whatever your business card says, you're in the business of you.

>> SMITH: At the time, ad costs rivaled those of multi-national brands.

>> Which university revolutionized education in America to reach the working learner?

>> You thinking about going back to school?

>> Yes.

>> Excellent, what are you thinking about going for?

>> SMITH: The industry also employed an army of salesmen and recruiters.

>> The for-profits need to continually add students.

When you think about it, for the University of Phoenix, for example, in order to grow on top of the folks that are leaving, you've got to add the equivalent of, you know, one to one-and-a-half Ohio States per year.

>> To satisfy their shareholders on a quarterly basis, they've got to increase their enrollment.

They have to aggressively recruit marginal students.

>> Because only one thing counts in this life.

Get them to sign on the line which is dotted.

>> Glengarry Glen Ross.

It's that sort of a heavy commercial environment in which you say whatever you need to say to close the deal.

(phone ringing) >> SMITH: The pressure to grow encouraged dubious enrollment practices.

Tami Barker was an enrollment advisor at Ashford University.

(phone ringing) >> They used to tell us, you know, "Dig deep.

"Get to their pain.

"Get to what's bothering them so that that way, "you can convince them that a college degree is going to solve all their problems."

>> The problem is that for many of these students, they think they're talking to an admissions advisor, they think they're talking to someone with some sort of ethical standards, and they don't realize that they're talking to a person who is selling them something, and that they might be better off to just walk away.

>> SMITH: Many students assumed they were getting a quality education and a useful degree.

>> I love Grand Canyon and the community that it represents, and also the Christian background.

>> This school is just perfect.

It's night classes.

>> I'm studying merchandise product development, and it is the coolest thing I've ever done in my life.

I love it.

>> SMITH: In 2010, the top Washington lobbyist for the sector told me it was all about providing new opportunities.

>> We educate the students that traditional higher education has given up on.

Traditional higher education has become a very socio-demographically elite group of people, so the only options lower-income students and working adults have is either to go to a community college, some of them can go to minority-serving institutions, and our option is the third option.

>> SMITH: But for years, for-profits had been charging students nearly five times as much as community colleges and gotten the bulk of their revenue, up to 90%, from student loans and grants.

>> This is the most heavily subsidized private business sector in America.

No one compares.

Defense industry, agriculture?

Don't hold a candle to these boys.

>> Hey ladies, you have to hold the household down, right?

Why can't you get an education for yourself?

You still can work, you can still take care of your kids.

I did it, you can do it too.

>> SMITH: But not all the promises were paying off.

>> The whole world opens up for you, but you got to do something right now.

You can't wait.

>> SMITH: Back in 2010, I met three students who had enrolled at Everest, part of the for-profit giant Corinthian.

They were hoping to become nurses, but it wasn't going according to plan.

>> They said that we were going to be making $25 an hour, and... >> $25 to $35, they told me.

So I was, like, "Okay."

And they're going to find us a job.

>> They're gonna find us a... >> They're going to place us.

>> I got my license in December of '09, and I've been on countless interviews.

And they all ask if I've ever been in a hospital, and I would have to tell them we never set foot in a hospital, ever.

We went to a museum of Scientology for our psychiatric rotation.

>> Our pediatrics rotation, we went to a day care.

>> Oh, yeah, that was our PEDs.

We went to a day care.

>> (laughs) >> SMITH: After our report aired, John Oliver picked up the story.

>> Job hunting might be a little difficult, as students from a Corinthian College nursing program found.

>> We went to a museum of Scientology for our psychiatric rotation.

>> What?

Scientologists do not believe in psychiatry.

>> This is the next big scandal in America!

>> SMITH: Washington also started paying attention.

>> This sort of reminds me of where we were two years ago with liar loans and no doc loans in the housing market, where people started accepting people who couldn't prove their income, couldn't prove employment, but we sold them a $450,000 house.

>> SMITH: And in a handful of hearings, some for-profits were accused of employing false or misleading advertising and using illegal recruitment efforts.

>> 15 of the 15 schools the GAO investigated found instances of fraud, deceptive practices, or made misleading statements to prospective students.

>> SMITH: In this hearing, they unveiled hard evidence.

>> And if you can just sign and date right there for me.

>> Okay, now, I'm not signing up for the school right now?

>> Yeah, you're actually reserving your seat.

>> Oh.

I was hoping I could talk to the financial people first.

>> No, they won't even let you back there.

>> Am I on the hook for the $38,000?

>> The thing about those tapes is that it was really hard in the face of this evidence to deny that there was a problem there.

>> You should be ready to make the investment of time and money necessary to get you to where you should be at this point.

But you're not.

What are you really afraid of?

>> SMITH: Congressional investigators also found that for-profit schools were failing to prepare students for the workforce.

>> Too many of the students who go to these schools are coming out with nothing other than big debt and no education, no gainful employment at all.

>> SMITH: In 2010, the Department of Education attempted to regulate the industry by implementing some new rules.

>> We're going to start with gainful employment.

>> SMITH: But the department ran into intense resistance.

>> The lobbyists for the for-profit industry and unfortunately many members of Congress challenged those regulations, critiqued those regulations.

>> This so-called "gainful employment" regulation is another example of this big federal government run amok.

>> They were overwhelmed.

They ran into this withering artillery fire of lawyers coming after the administration and beat them back.

>> Well, they're doing everything they can to screw up education.

>> The fact that the sector has declared an existential emergency around this, the sector has every lobbyist in town, former members of Congress on its payroll to defeat this, really kind of speaks volumes about the level of corruption and the kind of feeding frenzy we're talking about.

>> ...when the House of Representatives voted to prevent the Department of Education from implementing tough new rules that could deprive certain schools from federal funding.

>> ...former ventures: Trump University.

It's been the subject of increased scrutiny.

>> SMITH: Today, allegations of predatory behavior and negative press continue to dog the industry.

>> ...the Clintons got filthy rich off a for-profit university that took advantage of many poor people.

>> SMITH: But since I last reported on these schools, a lot has changed.

>> Are the for-profit schools value stocks or value traps?

>> One of the big losers though, that was Apollo Group, that operates the University of Phoenix.

>> SMITH: For-profits are no longer the darlings of Wall Street, and enrollment is way down.

In San Francisco, I talked with Trace Urdan, a banker who kept buy ratings on several for-profits for much of the last decade.

They are into decline, why?

>> Mostly market conditions.

The economy recovers and everybody finds a job, and then all of a sudden, you know, that trade-off that said, "Well, hey, wait a minute, "why should I borrow all this money "so that I can earn the same amount of money "that I can earn at Jamba Juice?

That doesn't make any sense."

>> SMITH: You have termed these students that are signing up for these courses as "subprime borrowers."

>> I knew that was gonna come out.

Yeah.

They were subprime borrowers.

I mean, that's a fair characterization of the types of students that are being served, right?

These are unsophisticated students that have a great deal of risk.

Now, that's not true across the board with for-profit education, but certainly when we're talking in the context of Corinthian.

>> SMITH: Corinthian.

That's the for-profit chain that included Everest College.

It's the school those three nursing students had attended.

We looked one of them up, Martha Salmon, and found her living in Southern California.

Martha had paid back the $28,000 she owed in student loans, but at a cost.

>> That was money that could have gone towards my house or for my kids.

It could have gone a lot of different ways.

But I just wanted to get rid of it.

>> SMITH: Her degree from Everest never resulted in nursing work, so she was forced to start over.

>> I got my R.N.

from Citrus College.

It's a community college in Glendora.

And from day one, the start of that school was totally different from Everest.

There's really no comparison.

For our psych rotation at Citrus, the R.N.

program, we went to a psych hospital.

And we were there for four weeks, and we were able to interact with the patients.

We followed the nurses while they gave medication.

It was at an actual psych hospital; it wasn't a museum.

>> And how much did it cost you to get a degree from a community college?

>> My R.N.

cost $3,000.

But the education that you receive, the money that you save is... there's no comparison.

>> SMITH: Stories like Martha's got the attention of California's Attorney General.

In 2011, Kamala Harris started investigating.

>> As we started diving into it, it became clear that Corinthian was engaged in extremely predatory behavior and conduct.

And so we sued.

This morning, my office filed suit against Corinthian Colleges, and in what can only be described as a for-profit college predatory scheme.

>> SMITH: A lot of what you charged was that there was a misrepresentation of job placement rates.

>> Absolutely.

Convincing students that if you sign up to receive an education, we will ensure you will also get a job.

That was all, uh...

I'm gonna say a polite term: that was wrong and inaccurate.

>> SMITH: It was B.S.

>> It was B.S.

It absolutely was.

>> SMITH: Harris based her complaint on interviews with over 100 employees and students, including Hollie Harsh and Brian French, the homeless students at Corinthian's Heald College.

>> That's a pretty girl!

Hi!

>> SMITH: Hollie and Brian had dropped out of Heald in their third semester, but the bills kept on coming.

>> And I was just like, "How am I going to pay this?"

>> Yeah, we still got bills coming out.

They still want their, what is it, $288 a month that they want to get from us.

>> For you.

>> Oh, for me alone.

>> Can you afford that?

>> No, not really.

We're living paycheck to paycheck as it is.

Kind of what I say I got from Heald was a $16,000 t-shirt.

That's what we got.

>> SMITH: Hollie Harsh, Brian French, homeless, recruited to sign up for government loans to go to school.

Is that an extreme case?

Are they outliers?

>> Anyone is a target.

They were targeting the most vulnerable and desperate people, people who felt that they were without resources.

This was by their own marketing materials.

>> SMITH: How do you explain that there are people that would want to take advantage of people like that?

>> It's greed.

>> Everest College is accredited by the West Coast Commission of Non-Accredited Schools.

You can learn anything.

>> SMITH: Corinthian would fast become the poster child of predatory for-profits.

Videos lampooning Corinthian flooded onto YouTube.

>> You're probably just sitting at home watching Maury.

I like Maury; I want to know who the daddy is too.

Make a decision, make a choice.

You gotta call Everest.

You still here?

>> SMITH: By 2013, California's Attorney General would share her findings with the Department of Education.

Soon after, officials in Washington decided to cut off the flow of federal funds until Corinthian could back up their claims of job placement.

>> The way financial aid typically works, it's almost like they give the institution a credit card, and they can...

In anticipation of getting that bill paid by the Department of Education, they can spend the money in advance.

What the Department of Education said is basically, it took away the credit card and said, "No, no, we need to verify your expenses before we get reimbursed."

>> I think we're in the peak of the highest amount of worry right now.

>> SMITH: Urdan was monitoring the company, and he told me that for most of the previous year, the CEO of Corinthian, Jack Massimino, was downplaying his problems.

>> He would say, "It's gonna be fine, you know, "we've put these things in place and it's all gonna be good, and you know, the students are coming, trust me."

They're always extremely optimistic, right?

So it's the job of people like me to try to filter that a little bit.

>> SMITH: Did you ask that question?

"Are you defrauding students?"

>> Well, no, I probably wouldn't have phrased it that way.

>> SMITH: Maybe you should have.

>> Maybe I should have.

Maybe I should have.

>> SMITH: I then asked him about the Department of Education withholding funds from Corinthian.

>> I knew something the Department didn't know, which was that withholding that much cash from them would precipitate a crisis, right?

So I knew that part.

What I didn't see coming was that the Department would actually do that to them.

>> SMITH: Without the influx of federal funds, top executives at Corinthian saw the writing on the wall and prepared to file for bankruptcy.

>> For-profit college provider abruptly closes its campuses... >> SMITH: On the morning of April 26, 2015, thousands of students woke up to hear the news.

>> As of today, school's out for good at Corinthian Colleges.

>> SMITH: It was the largest college shutdown in history.

>> Students are displaced after the sudden closure of 28 Corinthian College campuses.

>> School is over for thousands of Southern California students.

>> SMITH: Students were left wondering what would happen next.

>> Corinthian Colleges goes under, leaving 1.2 billion, with a "B," in federal student loan dollars in play.

And the people who did it are on their estates, are on their yachts, enjoying the fruits of their labor.

>> That's one of the concerns.

These are federal loans these students have.

So as a taxpayer, why shouldn't I be concerned about this?

>> SMITH: Officials at the Department of Education were trying to determine who should absorb the loss.

>> ...for all those students who had gone through Corinthian these last couple years.

>> Well, exactly, some of whom may be carrying quite a bit of debt and, as we now know, probably have very poor job prospects relative to what they were promised.

>> There were so many students, so many campuses.

There was no policy that could really handle that sort of scale.

Again, remember the times when campuses had closed before.

We're talking, you know, a few hundred students, right, a couple of campuses.

And the Department of Education would be on the hook for the billions of dollars that those students might have outstanding in loans, and they were not particularly enthusiastic about taking on that sort of burden.

>> SMITH: Instead of refunding the students, the Department midwifed a sale of 53 Corinthian campuses.

>> What they told me at the time was, "We were afraid to turn loose on the economy, "or into community colleges and other universities, so many students at one time."

>> SMITH: Too big to fail?

>> Sadly, that's what it sounded like.

I never bought it from the start; just didn't make any sense.

>> SMITH: The buyer was a non-profit specializing not in education, but in student debt collection.

Well, I don't get it.

I don't get it.

So this debt collector that collects bad debt for the Department of Education buys a whole slew of Corinthian Colleges?

>> Yes.

With the Department of Education, which is the regulator and the enforcer and the sheriff in town, actually stepping in to broker the deal.

>> We are Everest.

We are WyoTech.

We are Zenith Education Group, a non-profit that's putting students' success first.

>> SMITH: The CEO of Zenith and the General Counsel of the parent company, ECMC, agreed to sit down for an interview.

You raised a lot of eyebrows when you made this deal.

You're a debt-collecting company, but you're going into the business of education in a sector that is rife with high debt load.

>> Well, the ultimate proof will be in the pudding.

Our goal is to make sure that we can provide an affordable education of high quality so that when a student comes out of one of our programs, they have no more than $4,000 or $4,500 in debt.

We think that's affordable for a job that pays 20, 25 bucks an hour.

So are we there yet?

Not quite, but we've made a lot of progress.

>> SMITH: But your experience was in debt collection.

What experience did you have in running a school?

>> In the particulars of running a school, we brought folks in from the outside that had that experience.

>> SMITH: So ECMC had no experience in running a school, let alone a set of colleges.

>> That's correct.

>> SMITH: I then asked them about a report Zenith had commissioned that detailed all the problems at Corinthian.

And I quote, talking about Corinthian, "Students were misguided, resources misdirected, "questionable loans issued, and admissions departments pushed to recruit anyone with a pulse."

So I want to talk about these abuses and what you've done to change things.

>> We commissioned the IDEO report because we want to be different than the previous owners.

You know, from the point that we acquired these schools in February of 2015, fully 60% of those employees are no longer with us.

The senior management, completely redone.

As I mentioned before, completely new marketing team.

>> SMITH: You say that your entire marketing team has been replaced.

What about the compliance department?

>> So our senior leadership, all but one never drew a dime of pay from Corinthian, and that includes the person who runs compliance.

So we are in the process really of reinventing the leadership of Zenith Education.

>> SMITH: While it's true that the top manager for compliance was replaced, nearly one third of the staff in that department remains in place.

Zenith also kept most school administrators and teachers.

Does it concern you that Zenith is operating Corinthian with the same personnel that were there?

>> Well, the key thing is that schools that Zenith runs have to serve students well.

There's a monitor in place to help ensure that that occurs, and we're gonna do all we can to make sure that they're serving students well.

>> SMITH: How would you grade the Department on monitoring and investigating the abuses that we all know have gone on at these for-profit schools?

>> So I would say an incomplete.

I think we are making progress certainly compared to where we were when the administration began, but more to do.

>> Brand new regulations will hold these schools accountable for the value of their degrees.

>> SMITH: In 2015, after five years of legal battles, the Obama administration finally implemented a gainful employment rule.

Under this new rule, schools have three years to prove that they placed students in jobs which pay enough for them to afford their student loans.

>> It'll take years for the final judgment to come in.

>> SMITH: So we're gonna regulate through the rearview mirror?

>> Absolutely.

This was one of my main objections to what they did.

The American public are not supposed to be lab rats on whom we experiment and then pass judgment on providers post facto.

You wouldn't do that with food.

You wouldn't do that with drug safety.

The assumption is that the burden always ought to be on the provider to put enough evidence on the table that what they're selling the public, what they're financing with public dollars, is wholesome and at the very least not damaging.

>> SMITH: The Department of Education has also launched a new enforcement unit, promising to more closely monitor for-profit schools.

And this past month, the Department sanctioned another school.

>> The students at ITT Technical Institute fear that school may not be around much longer.

>> ...ruling today that ITT Technical Institute can no longer enroll new students who use federal loans.

>> SMITH: I spoke to one ITT student who told me he had already borrowed $20,000 to train as an architectural designer.

>> I had to get in debt.

I don't have no rich uncle who's gonna give it to me with a silver spoon.

Even though it might cost a little money, in the long run, it'll still be worth it, you know?

I won't have to be dependent upon welfare or anything like that as I get older.

I'll have a trade under my belt.

>> SMITH: Well, you haven't heard that the school is having any troubles or might close, or might be closed down by the government?

>> Well, I hope I'll be able to learn the program before they do that, because I really need to learn it.

>> SMITH: Just last week, ITT closed, leaving 35,000 students in the cold, including James Jones.

>> ITT Technical Institute is shutting down for good.

>> NARRATOR: Coming up next on this special edition of Frontline, we've followed Omarina since she was in middle school.

>> A middle school intervention is not sufficient in itself.

>> NARRATOR: Through the hard times, and the good.

>> (screaming) >> NARRATOR: "The Education of Omarina" begins right now.

>> NARRATOR: This is the story of six years in a life.

And an attempt to stem the dropout crisis in America.

When we first met Omarina Cabrera, she was a middle-school student in the Bronx, and she had been struggling.

>> Sixth grade was a hard year because me and my mom got evicted.

I felt shattered.

That was the home that I had for my whole life.

I didn't know what was gonna happen next, and that period of not knowing wasn't something that I felt comfortable with.

I felt this inkling in me that I would never want my children or anyone else to experience this.

>> NARRATOR: Shuffled between relatives' apartments, some without even electricity, Omarina suffered another loss.

>> When I was really young, my father walked out for whatever reason.

I finally got in touch with him.

Just before we were about to talk and I was about to go see him, he had gotten a stroke.

I see my father for the first time and it was in a casket.

>> NARRATOR: With her home life in chaos, Omarina's school life began to suffer.

She was showing up late or not at all, starting down a path that so many other young people take.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of students fail to finish high school.

>> Even kids in the most dire circumstances really want a future.

They just need to have a path to it.

>> NARRATOR: Robert Balfanz, one of the nation's top education researchers, had been searching for that path for 15 years by studying kids who were dropping out of high school.

Then he realized that the key moment when kids begin to go down the wrong path was actually in middle school.

>> If in the middle grades, you develop habits of not coming to school regularly, of getting in trouble or failing your courses, you bring that with you to high school.

>> NARRATOR: What he discovered was that if a sixth grade child in a high poverty school is absent more than 20% of the time, or fails math or English, or receives an unsatisfactory behavior grade in a core course, there is a 75% chance that they will drop out of high school unless there is decisive intervention.

>> It may seem far less than rocket science, but it's something that, in fact, schools by and large have not paid attention to.

>> NARRATOR: But Omarina's school, Middle School 244, did.

It had recently implemented a program based on Balfanz's research, designed to catch faltering students like her.

Every week, statistics were collected and reviewed by a team of counselors and teachers, including the principal, Dolores Peterson.

>> Let's go to 802.

Omarina.

How is Omarina doing?

>> NARRATOR: They would flag the students most in need.

>> Her mother's not even in the United States right now.

She was in a shelter not that long ago, then they were evicted.

I took her home one day, and it's on the other side of the world, you can say.

>> I can't tell you how much I worry every time she leaves this building.

>> When she leaves this building, you know, she's on her own.

>> NARRATOR: In cases like Omarina's, they'd organize an intervention.

Catherine Miller was Omarina's homeroom teacher.

>> So once Omarina was identified, it was imperative on my part as the homeroom teacher, in consultation with the guidance counselor, to discuss why she was coming in late so many times.

>> They came to me and they asked me, "What's wrong?

"You've been late a lot.

Something has to be wrong."

And that's when I told Ms. Miller that I was evicted.

>> Your mother needs to feel safe, or she needs to feel good about where you are, as do you, and the best we can do right now is... We can compile thousands of numbers about who's failing this or who's passing that, but if there's no response to that data, it's all for naught.

>> NARRATOR: It became clear that a chaotic home life was the source of Omarina's problems at school, and she needed targeted support.

>> You're gonna take this one today.

>> NARRATOR: The team helped her figure out routes to school from ever-changing addresses, got her a bus pass and books.

>> It's that sense of shepherding is what the kids need to know that an adult not only cares, but the adult can actually help them.

>> How's it going at home?

>> I think it's calmer than before.

>> And your brothers?

>> I had a lot of different things going on.

I had my brother, who is so smart, and he was just like me.

He's my twin.

My brother began to be exposed to a lot of the things that were out there, and not only him, but a lot of us were.

Not a lot of kids make the right choice, and that's happened a lot of times in the Bronx for a lot of people.

>> NARRATOR: In the summer after sixth grade, Omarina's twin, Omarlin, started hanging out on the streets and getting in trouble.

His mother had him moved to another school, thinking he'd be safer in a different neighborhood.

But when we met him at the end of eighth grade, Omarlin was rarely attending school, and his high school plans were uncertain.

>> Where am I gonna go to high school?

I don't know.

I haven't gotten a letter yet, of acceptance.

>> The fact that he got involved with the streets, he just began slipping off the mountain-- slipping off, slipping off, slipping off-- and it's really sad.

Without everybody, that's what I would be.

The fact that I go on to high school, that wouldn't matter to me.

"I can get my GED later," that's what I would say.

>> NARRATOR: Soon, Omarina was achieving near perfect grades and attendance.

Her teachers encouraged her to apply to competitive prep schools beyond New York City.

>> I thought that was your best essay.

Read it to me again, I love it.

>> "Typically, young adults look upon a political figure "or someone in their life for guidance and support.

"I, on the other hand, seem to find this inspiration "within a black and white street sign.

"Imprinted on the sign are the words 'One Way.'

"It taunts me with the inevitable reminder "that coming in is not the obstacle, but making it out."

>> NARRATOR: When the acceptance letters began coming in, they included a scholarship to Brooks, an exclusive private boarding school in Massachusetts.

>> So what did you decide?

Which school did you choose?

>> After giving it a lot of thought, I went with Brooks.

>> So are you excited?

>> Yeah.

>> I know I am.

How does it feel, Ms. Miller?

>> It's very humbling, um, and I'm incredibly proud of your accomplishments.

>> Oh, Ms. Miller, you're gonna make me cry!

Aw, come here.

>> NARRATOR: We checked in on Omarina halfway through her sophomore year at the Brooks School.

(students singing "Dona Nobis Pacem") >> I remember first getting here.

I was nervous that I was way too different to fit in.

>> We pray for our families.

>> A lot of kids here are very wealthy, and their parents are very important people.

I go back to an apartment in the middle of the Bronx.

>> And we pray for our school, that we may always be a home for innocence and truth.

>> There's times when you notice subtle comments because people haven't been exposed to certain things.

I think they are genuinely curious and genuinely want to know how I do my hair in the morning, or do I think in Spanish, or, um...

I don't know, was I born here?

>> NARRATOR: In this new environment, the pressure on Omarina wasn't just social.

In the beginning, she says, she struggled to keep up in class.

>> "11" equals 3.

Look at the last digit.

>> I remember getting my first quiz back and almost throwing up because I had a 16%.

And I think that was the moment when I realized, "Yeah, I'm not getting by if I don't work really, really, really hard."

During those times when, you know, it feels like a little bit too much, I feel like I do have a strong faculty to support me.

And Ms. Miller, who is always with me regardless of where I am.

>> Good morning.

>> Good morning.

>> What classes do you have this morning?

>> I have algebra two, then I have a chem test.

>> I felt as though it was really imperative to keep very constant contact.

>> Okay, bye, Ms. Miller.

Love you!

>> Just to make sure the adjustment was going well, but also knowing that many people were rooting for her to be successful here in the Bronx.

>> So, what if I asked you to graph this thing that's changing over time?

>> Well, zero is there, so it would go away from it, so it would be negative.

>> I caught up and I got good midterm grades.

I'm excited about that, and I'm proud.

(dance music playing) >> My sophomore year, now this is a good year.

You're kind of just floating.

(music continues) I just need to keep looking ahead and just keep going, keep moving a step at a time.

(music continues) >> NARRATOR: But just as Omarina was getting on track at Brooks, she received a disturbing call.

>> It was a Tuesday morning.

I couldn't ignore the feeling that I had in my stomach.

>> Why are we so powerless to save the people we love?

>> NARRATOR: She found out her twin brother Omarlin had been shot.

>> I immediately thought: is he dead?

Just tell me if he's dead.

>> I want to tell you why I did it.

>> NARRATOR: The police said the shooter fled the scene.

Omarlin survived.

>> I was scared and sad and disappointed and worried, but I can't show that to him because he doesn't need that.

He needs someone there to be strong for him.

>> NARRATOR: With their mother frequently not at home, Omarina was making regular trips to the Bronx, juggling the demands of her schoolwork and her sense of responsibility to her brother.

>> Hey!

Where were you?

I try very hard not to ever cry in front of him.

I hope he does realize that I do care, and that's why I do the things I do and that's why I always nag him.

So you get transferred, or are you still in the process?

What's gonna happen with that?

>> I don't know.

I'm just waiting.

>> It's not gonna take long, right?

>> No, I hope not.

>> NARRATOR: Omarlin was reluctant to talk about what was going on in his life, or about the bullet that could have ended it.

>> It came from this way into my arms, and then under my upper ribs on the left side, close to my heart.

I don't know, I could have died, so I thank God that I'm not dead and I can still be here.

So I just have fun.

I know she's going to have a bright future, too because she goes to school.

She got her scholarship.

That's good.

I don't know, I have to have a good life and a good job and kids and be married.

That's it.

>> NARRATOR: So while Omarina was finishing her sophomore year at Brooks, Omarlin, at age 16, was still in the ninth grade.

At the time of filming, he had only shown up for school five times all year.

In the coming months, he would be arrested for carrying a knife and for possession of marijuana.

>> I handle stress in different ways.

When I get to Brooks, I use it as almost my getaway.

I can't just think and think and think and think about all the things that are going wrong.

I just think of all the things that might be going right, you know?

>> NARRATOR: We returned to Brooks two years later, after a difficult junior year that would determine where, or even if, she would go to college.

>> What is oportet?

Remember from Latin 20, you had that list of all impersonal verbs?

>> An indirect statement.

>> Indirect statement.

>> In the beginning, I definitely thought I was gonna have one of the best years.

But junior year ended up being one of the hardest years of my life.

I think the clouds started gathering when we found out that Omarlin was going to be having a baby.

And I just remember thinking, like, "What did you do?"

I just thought back to, like, our childhood and how much our parents, you know, affected the trajectory of our lives.

And I just...

I just feared that he might not be able to physically be there because he's in a frenzy to provide for her.

And my fears came true when he was arrested.

>> NARRATOR: Omarlin plead guilty to attempted robbery in the first degree and was sent to Rikers Island to await sentencing.

>> I knew that my other half, my brother, the person that I love most in this world, was going through something so terrible that I could never even imagine.

>> All right, so what is the anti-derivative of 9?

>> All of this anxiety, you know, caused me to lose focus in school.

>> We're gonna get back to finding the volume of the cylinder, but we're gonna do it through... >> Junior year's important because those are the grades that are sent out to colleges.

I was, like, having panic attacks just thinking about, like, "Wow, my grades aren't what they're supposed to be."

Getting up out of bed was so difficult.

Just that day felt like too much for me.

>> I couldn't fathom the idea that this amazing young lady who has overcome so many things and is on the precipice of moving on to the next stage of her life, and that might all be gone.

I knew that an intervention was absolutely necessary, so I drove up to Brooks.

>> I just stopped, because I saw Ms. Miller with her "I'm going to kill you" eyes.

She'd always say, like, "All right, there's all these things you can't control, "but what are the things that are bothering you right now that we can fix?"

She got me this poster for my wall, more frames to put pictures of, you know, the people that I love.

Just that feeling that I had, you know, people to catch me whenever I did fall just gave me the strength to keep moving forward step by step, step by step.

>> NARRATOR: While all this was going on, Omarina, with the help of Ms. Miller and the staff at Brooks, was also applying to colleges.

>> That last document that GW needs, we need to take our efforts to the next level in terms of getting this thing done.

>> NARRATOR: The only way she could afford to go was with a generous financial aid package.

Her first choice was George Washington University.

>> I was scared because the ending of my junior year wasn't what I wanted it to be in terms of academics.

>> There was a possibility that the grades were still gonna overshadow her accomplishments, which was so disheartening to think about.

I wasn't sure what we were gonna do if she didn't have any financial aid.

>> NARRATOR: The answer came when she was home for December break.

>> Hi!

>> Hey.

>> How are you?

You look so pretty.

>> Thank you, so do you.

>> NARRATOR: She waited for the news at her old middle school.

>> I'm just a big bunch of nerves right now.

Anything can happen, basically.

>> The email comes at 5:00?

>> At 6:00.

>> Okay.

>> I got an email yesterday saying that they're gonna email it to me at 6:00.

(sighs) >> (laughs) >> Okay, y'all are taking too long for this.

I need to know.

It's been nine minutes.

(screaming) Oh, my God, I got in!

Oh, my God, yes!

And the money.

I don't know, I don't know, I think they might send in the money later.

I'll cry if I get full finan...

I'll cry real tears.

I don't cry, I try not to cry, but I will cry real tears.

>> So, I just asked if we can see a snapshot of the financial aid letter.

Wait, wait, wait, he just emailed me back.

>> What did he say?

>> "I can tell you that it is an extremely generous package."

>> (screams) >> "And she should have no issues making it work next year and beyond."

>> (screaming) >> (laughing) Okay, now I feel better.

Now I feel better.

I feel better, I feel better.

>> I'm gonna cry.

>> It's okay!

It's okay.

Oh, thank God.

(laughing, talking excitedly) >> You made it, you made it.

>> Okay.

Oh, God, I don't ever cry, but this is cry-worthy.

Oh, my God, thank you so much.

>> Lives in poverty are fragile.

You could be doing great one week one year and then something else hits, and if you don't have supports, you could still crumble.

Middle-school intervention is not sufficient in itself, but it's essential that it starts there, and we can see that in these two kids' life trajectories.

Although Omarina got some special advantages, you don't need the boarding school; you need a decent high school.

Two to three adults will get you all the way through high school graduation and on a path to post-secondary.

Her brother tragically represents the other side of the story.

If we don't solve the problem or change the behavior that's leading a sixth grader to miss a month of school or fail math and English, it doesn't self-correct.

In fact, we clearly see it gets worse.

>> NARRATOR: Around the same time that Omarina was accepted to George Washington, Omarlin was sentenced to three- and-a-half years in prison.

>> One of the people who were testifying against him, in their report, they said that Omarlin had told them, like, "I'm sorry that I'm doing this.

I'm doing this for my daughter."

(baby laughing) He doesn't get to see a big portion of her early years, and his daughter's growing up pretty fast.

>> (baby shouting) >> (imitates shout) >> (baby saying "meow") >> It just really, really messes with me, like, knowing that I'm moving on to a good part of my life.

You know, I'm graduating high school.

I've always felt like he's lagging behind me, and you know, I don't know how to get him on track.

But this is something different in the sense that, um, this is the rest of our lives.

This is no longer, you know, school; this is his life.

No one in my immediate family has graduated high school and gotten into college.

However, I believe I will be the first one.

(applause) And they will be excited and thrilled, and they'll be proud of what I've become.

>> To be that full of profound perspective and wisdom at this stage in her life leaves me believing that there are no limits to what she might do for, and share with, the world.

It is my privilege to present the Trustees' Prize to Omarina Cabrera.

(applause) Congratulations.

>> Thank you.

(applause continues) >> Congratulations to the Class of 2016.

>> Go to pbs.org/frontline for more of our continuing coverage of the for-profit college industry.

>> This is the most heavily subsidized private business sector in America.

>> Read the essay that helped Omarina win acceptance to the Brooks School.

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