Dr. Marc Breedlove

working class family, working class.

So my folks were blue collar workers.

I mean, for complicated reasons, I was raised by my grandparents.

He was a construction worker and she worked in a food processing plant.

And so they once told me that maybe altogether they went to third grade, right?

They got that far.

But they were clearly smart and great people and they were very supportive.

And so here's where – here's an incredibly lucky episode that happened to me.

So when I was a junior in high school, I go to the Central High School Library and I volunteered there after work to put away books.

And the librarian tells me, oh, there's this book you might be interested in.

And she shows me this really thick paperback.

Made up by the college board.

So this was the first year that the college board had put together this book showing all the colleges in the United States with little burbs about them.

And she said, you might want to look at that.

And I open it up and I see that for all the colleges, there's a paragraph about financial aid.

So I read that entire book.

from front to back, except I only read the financial aid part.

Because at the time, my grandfather passed away, and so my grandmother and I, our only income was Social Security, right?

That was our livelihood.

And so I read financial aid, every one, and I get to the end.