“Hookers to Harvard” March 27, 2008
Every once in a great while, I get the same cab driver for several days in a row. He’s a nice guy, kinda on the gruff side, and apparently has been driving cabs for a long time. He’s lived here so long (probably his entire life), he still refers to where I go to school as Oscar Rose Junior College (or just “Oscar Rose”). The school became known by its current name, Rose State College, in 1983.
Anyway, today he tells me this story about a program that was in place about 20 or so years ago that he called “Hookers to Harvard”. It was aimed at getting prostitutes off the streets by providing them with a free education. Books, tuition, fees, etc., were taken care of. Even the cab fare to and from campus was paid for! The idea was that if the “working girls” could get a college education (or a GED), then they could get better jobs, give up the life on the streets, and be “legit”.
The program apparently didn’t work out as people would have liked. The girls would stay in school maybe 6-8 weeks into the semester, get bored and drop out. Of course, they went back out to the streets to do what prostitutes do.
So much for the free education!
That’s all from where I sit.
–MorelaterZ–
wow. what’s that saying about the best intentions?
i think it’s cool there are people out there who can tell you the “real” history of where you’re living.
like when my boyfriend’s dad told us that Cemetery Park is named after the cemetery it was built upon. however, it’s been so long since they converted it that no one remembers they were too cheap to move the bodies, only the headstones. so all those kids’ soccer games are being played over people’s skeletons…