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Ellis, a mother of three, was supposed to pick up her 10-year-old daughter from school in 27 minutes. She pictured her youngest child waiting by herself in the searing heat. She called a friend, who agreed to fetch Aubrey. And for the second time in three days, she called AAA to say she was stranded. A Bible lay on the dashboard; she kept it there in hopes of sustaining the rickety sedan.
More than one-fifth of all undergraduate students are parents, and, like many of them, Ellis lived on a tight budget, with limited means to cover costly emergencies. She supported her family without receiving child support from their father, an ex-boyfriend who lived in another part of the city. She had a part-time job and a handful of grants and scholarships that helped cover the family’s living expenses. But she didn’t see how she could afford a down payment on a decent used car.
The 2002 Focus had 160,000 miles on it. She relied on it to get her children to and from school, to get herself to and from work. The car had a broken air conditioner, a taped-up taillight, and worn-out struts, which caused the right side to sag.
Without the car, Ellis’s family would be stranded on the outskirts of a sprawling city with scant public transportation. Without it, she couldn’t have enrolled at community college, where she had resolved to earn a degree that would enable her to get a solid full-time job, with a good salary and benefits. She had devoted herself to remaking her life.
In August, some quick repairs got the Focus running again. But then one morning it wouldn’t start. She got a new battery. The next day, the car again wouldn’t come to life.
Later that day, Ellis’s 14-year-old daughter, Autumn, had to walk home from track practice. The thought of her trekking all by herself deepened the guilt Ellis was feeling about her lack of reliable transportation. She knew she couldn’t keep hitching rides with colleagues and splurging on Uber trips. When Ellis got home that afternoon, her son, Sammy, 13, and his sisters saw the worry in her eyes, so they started cooking and cleaning.
Ellis closed her bedroom door and sat silently on her bed before sitting down on the brown carpet. How can I go into next week, she thought, not knowing how the kids are gonna get to school? She had spent more than $800 on the car in August, depleting much of her savings from the last year. In two days, the fall semester would begin; soon, assignments in her five courses would roll in.
After a while, Ellis got up from the floor. She had to find some new wheels. But it would likely require a sacrifice — sacrifice of what a parent holds most dear. Time.
Just getting around was often fraught with anxiety. Some days, Ellis and her sisters would wait and wait after school for their mother to pick them up from day care; sometimes she was so late, the girls gave up and made the long walk home together. Her father drove an old, rusted Chevy Nova that looked like it might conk out any second. Whenever he took her to school, she insisted on hopping out of the car down the street so none of her classmates would see her emerge from it.
Money was a daily worry. Ellis missed out on school book fairs because her parents couldn’t afford books. During family shopping trips to Walmart, she sometimes saw her mother put something for herself in the cart only to snatch it from the conveyor belt as the total on the cashier’s screen increased with each scanned item. “Oh, I’ll get that later,” Ellis would hear her say. The three girls enjoyed playing under a raised-up trailer they called home for a while, swinging from the fig and willow trees out back, and huddling in makeshift tents their mother had made from sheets and thumbtacks.
After Ellis’s mother left her father, she took her daughters to Arizona, where they moved from place to place before returning to San Antonio. Ellis bounced from one high school to another, often skipping class and getting into trouble. By 15, she had dropped out. At 19, she gave birth to Autumn. By 24, she was caring for three kids. For a while, she was living in public housing and unemployed. Eventually, she and the father of her children split up.
Caring for her children changed the way she thought about her future. Wanting them to have opportunities she had lacked, she resolved to continue her education after her youngest daughter started school. The lower rungs of the medical field were relatively accessible for a young mother with no degree and little money. In 2014, she completed a four-month certified-nursing-assistant program, for which she paid $400 in cash. Her first job was in a psych ward full of men.
My body was screaming ‘Don’t do it, say no,’ but I was constantly saying ‘Yes’ because I wanted that scream not to be so loud.
Later, Ellis worked in several nursing homes before enrolling in a medical-assistant certification program offered by the Alamo Colleges District, a network of five community colleges in the San Antonio area. She received a Palo Alto College identification card even though her training wasn’t held on the campus. She wasn’t earning a degree there, but when she first saw her name and photo on a plastic card bearing the name of the college, she thought, I’m official. That’s pretty cool.
When the pandemic came, Ellis was working as a medical assistant at a large health clinic and making good money. Each day, she suited up in protective gear that felt claustrophobic. When she felt sick, she popped Sudafed, double-masked, and kept showing up for work: The doctors there needed her and she needed the paychecks. She worked overtime and Saturday shifts while her partner, Mari Garcia, took care of her kids.
Ellis saved relentlessly. There was no ordering takeout dinners. Her children bought into her insistence on frugality, and whenever she felt tempted to buy something inessential, they would remind her that she was saving up for a house. Finally, in 2020, it happened. Ellis bought a 1,260-square-foot house, just one street over from her mother’s, in a modest neighborhood just off Interstate 35. She felt like a kid living in a grownup’s world after getting the keys to the gray-brick, three-bedroom house, in which her two oldest children would have to share a room.
A friend from her medical-assistant program applied to St. Philip’s College, one of the Alamo Colleges District campuses. Ellis did the same, though she wasn’t even sure where the college was. She took the Texas Success Initiative Assessment and failed the math portion, which consigned her to a remedial algebra class. Her financial aid covered the cost of her courses. For a while, she took online classes while continuing to work full time at the health clinic.
Later, Ellis quit her job to focus on her studies. Garcia’s job at a warehouse helped make that possible. Ellis planned to pursue an associate degree in radiography technology, which would allow her to perform X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans. She believed it was a solid plan.
Until she visited a city she had never seen.
A trip to the Windy City changed her perspective. In October 2023, Ellis flew to Chicago with several of her fellow students for the annual conference of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. St. Philip’s paid for the entire weeklong trip, during which Ellis walked the Navy Pier, strolled through Chinatown, and tried her first Chicago dog.
Ellis, who usually walked around in oversized sweaters and Crocs, wore professional attire each day to the conference. That year’s theme was “Championing Higher Education Success: Strengthening Our Workforce and Strengthening America.” Ellis shook dozens of hands, meeting people who worked for the military, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Capital One, Kraft Foods, Southwest Airlines, Molson Coors. Everyone she spoke with had a business degree, and, she noticed, they were all well dressed and well spoken. And they seemed content with their lives.
Ellis flew back to San Antonio picturing her own family living comfortably and traveling, too. Business, she thought, could lead to big opportunities. But was it the right path?
For months, the question kept surfacing in Ellis’s mind. She talked it over with her partner, Garcia, and her children. Then, in winter 2024, she sought guidance from Rodell Asher, director of districtwide student engagement and leadership for the Alamo Colleges District. During their first meeting, in the administrator’s office, Ellis opened up, describing her past challenges and explaining why, after a decade in the medical field, her passion for it was waning.
Caring for patients had long been part of Ellis’s identity. Her family members called her “the doctor of the family.” Ellis worried that if she were to switch majors, she would slow her progress toward a career and let her family down in the process. Though the prospect of pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business after getting her associate intrigued her, it would mean a few more years of college before securing a full-time job.
Ellis cried a few times during her chat with Asher, emptying the box of tissues on the desk. The administrator snagged another box and kept listening. She saw before her a bright young woman who was, as she later recalled, “reaching for something deep within her, just wanting to bring it out.” She asked Ellis to take a couple career assessments and helped her interpret the results. Asher drew a line down a piece of paper and talked her through the pros and cons of sticking with radiography.
Back at home, Ellis talked it over with Garcia.
Business, Ellis had learned, touches everything. Studying it in college would give her flexibility, the ability to move from one field to another if she wanted. She could even see herself starting a business down the line.
“OK,” she said at last. “I’m gonna switch.”
Ellis changed her major. She was changing, too.
When Ellis enrolled at St. Philip’s, she didn’t think of herself as a leader. Never had, really. But Angela McPherson, the college’s director of student success, saw a leader in her right away. When they met, in 2023, McPherson, known as Dr. Mac, grabbed Ellis’s hand and shook it, asking if she were involved in any campus organizations. “No,” Ellis said. A moment later, McPherson sat her down at a table and introduced her to a few student leaders.
McPherson, who had then worked in higher education for nearly 30 years, knew that getting involved on campus tends to increase a student’s chances of success. In Ellis, she saw a kind soul who easily connected with others. We need to clone her, she thought. McPherson invited her to take on leadership roles, speak on panels, and participate in various campus events.
Ellis, a self-described introvert, felt deeply anxious when speaking before an audience. But she accepted every one of McPherson’s invitations in hopes of overcoming her nerves. “My body was screaming ‘Don’t do it, say no,’” she would recall later, “but I was constantly saying ‘Yes’ because I wanted that scream not to be so loud.”
Ellis joined her college’s chapter of the National Society of Leadership and Success and Phi Theta Kappa, both honor societies. She ran for a student-government seat and won. Later, she won a seat on the Student District Council, which has representatives from each of Alamo’s colleges. She participated in the Student Leadership Institute, which prepares students to serve the campus and its surrounding community. She volunteered during Spirit Days and at Phil’s Den, which provides free clothing to students, faculty, and staff. She joined Alamo’s Scholarship Ambassador program, which allowed her to attend fund-raising galas and golf tournaments. And she became a mentor to other students on campus.
The young woman who had cut class as a teenager didn’t have to sit through those board meetings, but she did so anyway, wanting to be there and be seen.
Ellis, who served on a task force that advocates on behalf of student parents, researched what other colleges were doing to support mothers and fathers with kids. When she found examples of promising practices, she shared them with administrators and asked, “Why don’t we do that here?” When she realized that one of Alamo’s campuses didn’t have a dedicated spot for parent support-group meetings, she spoke up. And when she saw that St. Philip’s didn’t have any photographs of parenting students on its website, she helped change that.
Ellis had come to see St. Philip’s as a place that was nurturing her; she wanted to nurture it in return. Each leadership experience gave her confidence that she could take on bigger challenges. That confidence enabled her to picture herself as a leader in the work force, which, in turn, compelled her to pursue a degree in business.
Ellis learned to navigate the systems governing her day-to-day life as a student. She and her friends compared notes on caring professors and ones to avoid. She hung out in the science building early in the morning to cultivate a closer relationship with her anatomy professor, who, she had noticed, always drank hot chocolate — and not coffee. So, one day, she brought him some. After she flubbed a test, the professor allowed her to retake it. She aced it the second time around.
Ellis secured her first work-study position at the Alamo Colleges Foundation, the philanthropic engine behind the scholarships the institution provides to students. At the foundation’s offices, in the Alamo Colleges District headquarters, she would ask staff members if she could get them something from the vending machine or help them move boxes to their cars.
Before the foundation’s board meetings, Ellis had to set up the coffee station and such. But she also would look up each of the board members on LinkedIn to eye their headshots ahead of time. That way, she could greet them by name later on. The young woman who had cut class as a teenager didn’t have to sit through those board meetings, but she did so anyway, wanting to be there and be seen.
Ellis often bumped into Asher, the administrator who had helped her think through her decision to switch majors. One day, Asher asked if there was anything she could do for her. “Can you get me a work-study position in your department?” Ellis asked.
Soon, she had one. Ellis became indispensable to Asher, taking on research projects and seeking out data on her own.
“What is it that you want to do?” Asher asked Ellis one day.
“I want to do what you do,” she said.
This spring, Ellis told Asher she needed a part-time job. Later, the administrator told her about an opening at the welcome center, on the first floor of the district’s headquarters. Though Ellis didn’t yet have a degree, which the college had listed as a requirement, she got the job anyway. The position came with no benefits, but it allowed her to interact with students each day. Her supervisor told her she could come in at 9 a.m. instead of 8 a.m., so that she could take her kids to school.
The people closest to Ellis noticed changes in her. Garcia, low-key and straight-talking, observed her partner becoming happier, more outgoing. “All these colors coming out” was how she put it. Garcia had once seen Ellis focusing on herself and her children. Over time, she saw her become more and more interested in helping other people, too.
Each day, Garcia witnessed Ellis’s devotion to her kids. But she often told Ellis this: “You’re more than a mom.”
Ellis had begun to believe it.
The young woman adored her grandmother and admired her resourcefulness. She would practice walking around with her eyes closed, teaching herself to turn on lights and change the channel on the remote just by touch.
As a student parent, Ellis often felt as if she were navigating her way through the dark. She wanted to pull her family into a more comfortable life, to give her children experiences she had not enjoyed. She wanted to normalize college and set an example of what it takes to succeed. She often brought them to St. Philip’s for campus events, so they could see her in action. “We don’t have the luxury to half-ass stuff,” she often heard student-parents say. She wanted her kids to know that, too.
But Ellis often felt what she calls “mom guilt.” Her aspirations, for herself and her family, required many sacrifices. Of time together, most of all. Sometimes, her homework had to come first. “Hey, it’s gonna be like this for a little while,” she would tell her kids. “Just hang in there, guys.” She knew her commitments required sacrifices from them, too.
Ellis had a degree, but she still had the same challenges as the day before.
Some nights, Ellis watched movies with her kids; others, she plowed through homework while they made themselves bowls of ramen and ate dinner without her.
She had converted her bedroom closet into a study nook, with a desk, a tiny ceiling fan, and a lamp connected to a power outlet by an extension cord. There, in the quiet, she typed up her assignments, often submitting them the very minute that they were due: 11:59 p.m. Sometimes, she closed the door and watched a show on her laptop, to give herself a break.
For Ellis, excelling in college went hand in hand with recasting herself as a person, with smoothing the jagged edges of life. That big task required small chores, such as renewing her driver’s license. Ellis had lost hers after running too many red lights and failing to pay the fines. For about 13 years, she had driven around the city hoping she didn’t get busted. One day, a police officer pulled her over in a wealthy neighborhood while she was driving her kids to a birthday party. Bit by bit, she saved up the $3,000 she owed and got her license back.
It meant Ellis could rent a car, which meant she finally could take long road trips she wouldn’t have dared taking in any of the broken-down cars she had ever owned. One fall, she drove her mother to New Mexico to see the annual Albuquerque International Balloon Festival, where they watched hundreds of hot-air balloons ascending like gigantic jewels. A year later, she drove her mom back to New Mexico, along with her kids; they visited the village where her grandmother had grown up. Ellis snapped pictures of her mother giddily snapping pics.
Some of the money for those trips came from the stipends Ellis earned for her leadership positions. She also pulled in every private scholarship she could.
This spring, Asher told Ellis about a nonprofit organization called Scholarship America, which was introducing a new scholarship for student parents. She applied minutes later and soon received a check for $1,000. She put it all toward a down payment at a dentist’s. For years, she had felt self-conscious about her smile but couldn’t afford to do anything about it.
After a cleaning and some dental crowns, she felt more confident about having her picture taken. And that was important: She knew that Alamo planned to put her headshot, and those of a few other accomplished students, on billboards throughout San Antonio.
In May, Ellis graduated from St. Philip’s with an associate degree in business administration. She wore a beaded cap to the commencement, a tribute to her late grandmother’s Native American ancestry, and a rainbow of stoles representing her many leadership positions. Dr. Mac, who calls Ellis her “work daughter,” gave her a $50 check. Ellis celebrated with her family and friends at a taqueria. Her mother smiled all night.
When Ellis woke up the next morning, she felt strange knowing she had no assignments due. She would miss St. Philip’s, where she once spent a memorable hour sweating inside the bulky costume for Phil the Tiger, the college’s mascot, at a celebration of the institution’s 125th anniversary. Where a campus literary magazine published a poem she had written about her late father. “In my dream, Dad, you lived a different life,” it begins. “It wasn’t perfect, but it was manageable.”
Ellis had a degree, but she still had the same challenges as the day before.
Ellis followed the “envelope system” popularized by Dave Ramsey, a radio host and author who offers financial advice. Every week, she withdraws the same amount of cash from her checking account and places a specific amount in each of the envelopes hanging from a shelf in her bedroom. All of them are labeled for a particular expense: groceries, insurance, phone, gas, school, and so on. The rule: Spend only what’s in each envelope — and not a cent more.
On a hot Sunday morning in August, Ellis grabbed the envelope for groceries, which contained four $20 bills. Then she and Aubrey, her youngest, rode over to a nearby H-E-B, a supermarket chain with locations across Texas.
In the produce section, Ellis looked over at Aubrey, sharp-eyed and expressive, with a turquoise streak in her long hair. She was about to bag a bunch of bananas.
“Get the green ones, right, baby?”
Ellis scanned the grocery list she had made, crossing off “potatoes” as Aubrey placed a $2.97 five-pound bag of russets in the cart. Over in the meat aisle, Ellis picked up a package of beef, which she had seen becoming more and more expensive; she studied the price tag before setting them down. She opted for a package of chicken-breast tenders instead. When Aubrey picked up a $1.58 can of green beans, Ellis asked her to fetch a different brand. It was 10 cents cheaper.
Some brand-name items seemed worth splurging on, such as Dawn dish soap, which, the family had found, was more effective than cheaper brands. Though Ellis didn’t consider a 30-pack of Styrofoam plates a necessity, she grabbed one anyway and tossed it into the cart. “Every now and then,” she told her daughter, “it’s nice not to have to do the dishes.”
After Aubrey hunted down an extra-large watermelon, Ellis smiled at her: “OK, I think we did good today.” They headed for the checkout line, rolling past rainbow-colored towers of Gatorade and an imposing seasonal display of Reese’s peanut-butter cups.
Ellis looked down at the rack of snacks near the register. “You wanna get one of those for school next week? But you’ve got to hide them from your brother!”
Aubrey picked a small can of sour-cream Pringles, for $1.48. Sometimes, Ellis believed, a treat was essential.
The bill came to $73.95. The electronic coupons Ellis had stored on her phone saved her a total of $1.01.
The same routine repeated week after week, the same discipline practiced over and over again, had enabled Ellis to save money for travel with her children. She had taken them on a train trip to Chicago and a plane trip to Seattle. One day, she wanted to get them on a cruise ship, too. An as-yet-incomplete vision board she kept in her room included two pictures of massive luxury vessels gliding on calm waters.
Among Ellis’s many cash-stuffed envelopes was one for car maintenance. She kept enough in it to cover things like oil changes, but not enough for a full-on emergency.
Not enough for an entirely new car.
Ellis had been saving up for some much-needed foundation repairs to her house; the ceiling was cracked and the floor was sloping. But the roof isn’t caving in on us yet, she told herself that afternoon. I need a car right now.
A new semester would start in two days. Ellis had enrolled at Palo Alto College, where she would pursue a bachelor’s of applied science in business. She had taken her first courses over the summer, and was registered for five three-credit courses this fall. Though her classes were all online, she still had to get to and from her job at the district headquarters welcome center. Still had to get her kids to and from school. Still had to have a car to go anywhere.
Managing trade-offs, making sacrifices. It was a way of life for Ellis, just as it was for many other student parents.
That night, Ellis visited a nearby dealership. She had less than $2,000 for a down payment, and wasn’t sure what she would find, or if she could afford anything. A salesman showed her a few used cars, including a 2021 Honda Pilot, a mid-size SUV with room for eight passengers. It was white, with black rims, and though it had about 95,000 miles, Ellis noticed that it looked brand new.
Ellis got behind the wheel and took the Pilot for a test-drive. The car felt solid, the A/C worked. Back at the dealership, Ellis said she wanted it.
The salesman told her she could get the Pilot for no money down. When he handed her the key, she couldn’t speak. Driving home, Ellis kept thinking someone was about to pull her over and take the car back.
When she parked in front of her house, all her kids ran outside. Aubrey, the youngest, plopped down in the front passenger seat. Feeling the unfamiliar blast of the AC, her kids kept saying “It’s cold in here!” Ellis then drove around the corner to her mother’s.
It was a happy night. But amid the celebration, a question lingered. While heading home in the gleaming Pilot, she had thought, Oh, shoot, how am I gonna afford this?
After Ellis left the dealership, she realized she had to figure out a way to cover the monthly payment. Most likely, she would need to get a second part-time job. Ellis had a friend who worked at a nursing home, and she figured she could swing two five-hour shifts there on weekends. Or maybe she could work one long shift on Saturdays?
Either way, the plan would complicate a goal she had posted on her newest vision board: “More Family Time.” It also would leave her with fewer hours for chores, errands, and decompressing.
Still, Ellis knew she would keep finding ways of bending time, of expanding each moment she spent with her family. On a Sunday morning, the day before the start of the fall semester, Ellis drove home from the grocery store as Aubrey peppered her with skeptical questions about the tooth fairy. Garcia made pancakes and egg-and-potato sandwiches for lunch, and before everyone dug in, Ellis said a prayer: “Thank the Lord for this time together.”
Around 5:30 the next morning, Ellis took Autumn to her high school for track practice. A line of cars driven by parents inched toward the building. Ellis’s oldest daughter usually hopped out of the family’s old Ford long before it reached the front of the line, just as Ellis once hopped out of her father’s junker. But that morning, Aubrey said, “No, Mom. Drop me off in the front.”
Over in the parking lot outside Alamo’s district headquarters, Ellis tapped her window while cruising past the reserved spaces for senior administrators. “I want a spot over here,” she said. Though she could picture herself working as a project manager in a range of businesses down the line, what she really wanted was a full-time job at the Alamo Colleges District.
Ellis stopped by to visit Asher, the mentor who had helped her think through her career options. They had since become close. After hearing the news about the new Honda, Asher stood up from her desk and hugged Ellis. “I am so proud of you,” she said. “Oh my goodness, girl!” Asher handed Ellis a tissue and then took another for herself.
Later, Ellis visited her new campus. Though she wasn’t taking in-person classes at Palo Alto College this fall, she wanted to feel the first-day energy there. A young woman in sparkling slip-ons asked her where Brazos Hall was. “It’s over there,” Ellis said, pointing to her left. She winced as she watched the new student veering right.
After lunch, Ellis sat down at the welcome center’s front desk for her shift. A young woman planning to enroll in a sonography program stopped by, seeking assistance with financial-aid forms. Ellis helped her and gave her some advice, about which professors to avoid and how to prepare for an aptitude test designed to identify students possessing the skills to perform an ultrasound. She doesn’t know anything about anything, Ellis thought. Not unlike herself just a few years earlier.
Later, Ellis pulled into her driveway. She was eager to sit down for dinner, hear about her kids’ days at school, and dive into her management-theory course.
But soon after walking into her house, Ellis opened her front door and stepped back outside. She stood there for a moment and stared at her new car, gleaming in the sun.
