College Dropout Factories

It was money—or the lack of it—that determined where Nestor Curiel chose to go to college. Nestor was an above-average high school student who generally made the honors list, and he was diligent in his non-school hours as well, holding down a part-time job as a busboy and line cook at the restaurant where his father worked. His ACT score was 18, equivalent to about 870 on the SAT, which wasn’t high enough to gain him admission to a selective college. He chose Chicago State University. For the next two years, Nestor encountered a ceaseless array of impediments to getting through school. Ben Miller and Phuong Ly, Washington Monthly, Aug. 23, 2010