Single mom Erica Flores used to hate it when people asked her where she studied college. The South Irving native and her peers did not talk much about those things in the past as many of them just finished high school and decided to head straight into the workforce after that.
Even though Flores eventually pursued a highly successful career in economic development, it still bugged her when someone asked her where she went to college. That all changed, though, in the year 2015 when she boarded a Southwest flight that was headed to Austin.
She sat next to Kent Hance, the man who wore a sweater vest and a newsboy hat and the one who will forever change her life. Hance was Texas Tech University's chancellor emeritus and he never misses an opportunity to recruit new students for his school.
College journey was not easy for Flores
One of those recruits is Flores, who will finally be graduating with her bachelor's degree in general studies with concentrations in human sciences, psychology and sociology this month.
The road was not easy, though, for Flores, who sometimes thought she would not make it to graduation. It took the 40-year-old six long years to complete her online program while raising three kids as a single mother. She was also working full-time and caring for her ailing mom as she navigated the upheaval of the COVID pandemic the past few years.
She managed to overcome all challenges thrown her way as Flores can now proudly say that she went to Texas Tech. Her journey has been incredible to say the least, considering she never took the SAT before graduating in 2000 from Irving's Nimitz High School and that most of the students she knew were not encouraged to pursue studies after finishing high school.
According to available data from the Texas Education Agency, Nimitz mirrored state rates that showed just under 20 percent of students enrolling in the kind of advanced courses needed to prepare for college. Flores told the Dallas Morning News that they did not talk about college around that time and they all understood that option was not available to them.
Flores proud to be a college graduate at 40
That did not stop Flores from building a successful career, though. She made a name for herself by working at the Dallas Regional Chamber on the economic development team in 2015. Flores still did not have an answer when people asked about where she went to college, one thing that Hance wanted to change when they shared that fateful flight.
He insisted that Flores should reconsider college even though she was busy with her career and raising her three kids. Hance told Flores to take just one class and then she can say that she went to Texas Tech. Now the Texan can proudly say that she is a college graduate.
According to think tank and advocacy group Every Texan, the number of part-time students at four-year universities across the state of Texas increased by 78 percent from 2008 to 2016. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board gave some alarming numbers, saying that only about 49 percent of the 350,000 students who graduate from high school each year in the state were enrolling in a postsecondary training program as of 2018.
