DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH

Making a difference

The Diamond Family Scholars was launched with a $17 million gift from Houston philanthropists Andy and Andrea Diamond. It ensures students receive the state-mandated benefits to which they are entitled – students aging out of the Texas foster care system or who have otherwise ended up as wards of the state are eligible for a tuition waiver at the state’s public colleges and universities – as well as plugging the gaps to help with room and board, books and other supplies. Students will share living space in one of the University’s residence halls and receive hands-on mentoring and academic advising.

More than 23,000 youth a year nationally age out of the foster care system when they turn 18, according to the National Foster Youth Institute, and experts say few have the support, both financial and emotional, that can be crucial to college success.

Andy Diamond told the University’s Board of Visitors last spring that he and his wife—both graduates of the UH Law Center — had grown interested in what happens to these young people once they leave state custody.

“Most of the time, the outcomes are not good,” he said, noting that only about half of students who have been in the foster care system graduate from high school. One out of five become homeless.

“Andrea and I looked at ways we could make a difference in the world,” he said. “We believe changing the lives of a few young people will be a start.”

The need is enormous, starting with financial need. Students may retain strong ties with grandparents or other extended family. Some have been adopted. Money is a major concern for most all of them.

Add financial stress to emotional vulnerability, and things can approach crisis.

The Diamond Family Scholars program is designed to offer support so that doesn’t happen. It operates out of the Urban Experience Program offices on the UH campus, where students from a variety of socioeconomic, gender and cultural backgrounds, including underrepresented minorities, first-generation students and those covered by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals can find help when problems crop up.

‘Everyone wants us to succeed’

The first group of Scholars say they gladly accept the challenge.

“Being the first group means not only that everyone wants us to succeed, but we should mentor the next group, to keep the program going,” said Andrea Tijerina, who will attend the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management.

Tijerina was eight when she entered foster care; she and her younger half-sister were adopted by a San Antonio family four years later. That has been a happy experience, and working at restaurants during her high school years helped her discover her passion.

“I love cooking,” she said. “And I’m kind of good at it.”

But earning a degree will take more than passion, and Tijerina was drawn to the program in part as a sort of preventive maintenance. “It will definitely provide the support I need financially, but also academically,” she said. “I know college will be hard. Academically, I need this.”

She expects to need something more personal, too, and a summer program on campus offered an answer for that.

Telling their stories

Tijerina and Couling, who graduated from high school in The Woodlands, were roommates during that four-day program in July, and will live together for their freshman year, as well.

They will offer support and hold each other accountable, Tijerina said, imagining a lifelong bond. “We can graduate and go into life together.”

The two are bound not just by their stories of childhoods interrupted – Couling was adopted by her grandparents after her parents’ deaths – but by a determination not to be defined by those circumstances. 

For Tijerina, that means both focusing on academics and connecting with student groups, including the Catholic Student Organization. Couling, who trained as an emergency medical technician and participated in speech and debate in high school, hopes to combine the two with a major in health communications.

But improving the way in which health information is communicated is just one of her interests. She wants to share her story, too, she said, to play some small role in shifting society’s expectations about who is likely to succeed.

“Everyone can benefit from hearing stories,” she said.

‘I wouldn’t be who I am’

Looking back isn’t the same thing as moving forward, though, and ultimately, that’s the goal.

Dylan Roy had a chaotic childhood and spent time in foster care. Relatives eventually adopted him and his two younger brothers, and he went on to become an All American with the Spring High School football team.

When he thought about his childhood at all, he saw it as an experience that shaped the man he would become.

“What I went through, it sucks,” he said. “But if it hadn’t, I wouldn’t be who I am. I wouldn’t change anything about my childhood, because it made me and my brothers who we are.”

And who he is now is a college freshman, aiming for a career as a physician’s assistant or physical therapist and grateful that a high school counselor recommended he apply for the Scholars program.

He knew his time in foster care meant he qualified for a tuition waiver at public colleges and universities, but that didn’t cover books, meals and a room on campus, and he expected to commute to campus from Spring. Now he’ll be on campus, eager to live up to his promise

“The same effort I put into football in high school, I’m going to put into my grades,” he said. “I want to get everything I can out of four years here.”

Key to that, this group agrees, is the Diamond Family Scholars program.

“This lifts a big burden,” Tijerina said. “We are a group that wants to succeed and beat the odds.”