Carmen Esquivias can remember the days when her daughter, Abigail, was so stressed by the approach of graduation that she would tug constantly at her hair and, sometimes, not even sleep at night. It was 2013, the final semester of Abigail’s senior year at Tomales High, and she had just been accepted to the University of California, Berkeley, where she would become the first member of her family to attend college.
But then Abigail’s father lost his job. And even though she was determined that her daughter go to college—“I don’t care if I have to scrub bathrooms,” she said—Carmen was not making enough money as a housekeeper in Bodega Bay to pay Berkeley’s enormous tuition. Abigail’s college dreams had changed into sleepless nights of stress and uncertainty.
That’s when Ariana Aparicio, a former Tomales student and longtime Point Reyes resident, arrived at the Esquivias family’s house in Santa Rosa.
“I did not have much help,” said Carmen, a native of Jalisco, Mexico, who did not finish high school. “But then I met an angel.”
Ariana is a “college access fellow” for 10,000 Degrees, a Marin and Sonoma County-based nonprofit that gives college counseling and financial support to under-resourced high school students. Since 2012, she has been guiding Tomales students through the long, difficult process of applying to, attending and staying in college. Her work includes helping families fill out financial aid and scholarship forms, translating for Spanish-speaking families and keeping students focused on their college goals up to, and after, high school graduation.
“We worked a lot one-on-one my senior year,” said Abigail, who was the student body president during her senior year. “Actually getting into college, the application process, financial aid. Ariana sat down with me and she went through the entire process.”
A 2007 Tomales graduate, Ariana attended Santa Rosa Junior College for two years before transferring to Sonoma State, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in 2011. She spent a year serving on the boards of several West Marin organizations—including the Tomales Bay Library Association, the Dance Palace and the Coastal Health Alliance—before 10,000 Degrees asked her to take over the reins as the program’s sole mentor at Tomales.
“That was something I always had in the back of my mind,” said Ariana, who herself went through the 10,000 Degrees program at Tomales. “I hoped that I could go back to the high school and volunteer.”
Founded in 1981, the program has helped over 18,000 students attend and complete college, and has offered scholarship awards to tens of thousands more. According to its website, it has given more than $54 million in scholarships and boasts an 85 percent four-year degree completion rate for its students. (The program takes its name from its mission to see 10,000 students graduate from college in each of the communities it serves.)
Across the two counties, 315 juniors and seniors are enrolled in the program this year, and another 180 are expected to join next fall. Alex Sterns, a supervisor for the program, noted that Shoreline Unified School District’s small student population relative to other Marin districts makes the program’s influence more acutely felt than elsewhere. This year, for instance, nearly one-third of the students in Tomales’s senior class are 10,000 Degrees participants.
“That’s a significant impact,” said Mr. Sterns, who visits Tomales every couple of months to give presentations. “We’re not able to make that same impact at other schools.”
Currently, 23 Tomales students—16 seniors and seven juniors—participate in the program, nearly triple the amount since Ariana began mentoring there three years ago. So far, 16 sophomores have applied for acceptance into the program next year. (As with previous years, every senior in the program this year will attend either a four-year institute or community college.)
Those numbers are a far cry from what they were in 2007, when Ariana was one of only three Tomales students in 10,000 Degrees. Like many of the kids she now serves, Ariana was a first-generation college student, and she spent much of her first year as a fellow trying to figure out how she could recruit more students.
“When I was there, there wasn’t much information available,” she said. “Now, with me being at school, I’m able to reach some students who would have fallen through the cracks. My story is able to resonate with students because my background is pretty relative to what they are going through right now.”
Some alumni of the program, like 2011 graduate Ricardo Gonzalez, say that without Ariana’s mentorship, college access would have been much more difficult to obtain, if not impossible. Ricardo and his family—originally from Michoacan, Mexico—have lived and worked on Bivalve Dairy in Point Reyes for 17 years; as a first-generation college student, Ricardo considers himself to be “raising the bar” for his younger siblings and cousins.
“That motivated me,” said Ricardo. “Prove to them that I can get somewhere and make something in life.”
At an informational presentation for parents held last week at the high school, Ricardo described his plans for pursuing a career in agriculture after he graduates in 2018 from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Growing up on a dairy, he said, taught him the basics of farming, and he hopes a degree in dairy science—a major he is now studying, with an emphasis in husbandry—will land him a job as a dairy inspector or cheese maker.
Abigail, too, has high hopes for her post-Berkeley future. Like Ariana, whose college studies led her to an interest in education, Abigail wants to work on the policy side of public education. “Education has always been my passion, which is why I’m studying it now,” she said. “I want to help improve the education system.”
Across the country, one of the greatest challenges to improving the education system is the high cost of tuition and other expenses, which often put college out of reach for many high-school hopefuls. Aside from one-on-one assistance with financial aid paperwork, 10,000 Degrees provides Tomales students with scholarships of up to $4,000, renewable annually. And students in the program are not the only beneficiaries of scholarship funds: this year, 26 other students at the high school will receive 10,000 Degrees scholarships.
Despite the emphasis that the program places on financial aid, parents at last week’s presentation made clear that the support Ariana gives is much more valuable than the program’s money. Ariana, likewise, has recognized the value of the support she brings to students and their families who, otherwise, would have struggled much harder to maintain good grades and keep application deadlines.
“It’s more than just college applications and scholarships,” Ariana said. “It’s about having support. I’m there as a friendly face and a welcoming individual. I want to be someone they can go to for support, whether it’s good or bad.”
But providing this kind of support comes with its share of challenges; among the most difficult of these is the large amount of physical distance separating schools, families and outside resources. Shoreline spans over 30 miles between the elementary schools in Bodega Bay and Point Reyes Station, an hour-long drive through the ranchlands where many students live.
“Asking somebody to come for an evening session is a real challenge, whereas in Central Marin or Santa Rosa, it’s not nearly the same,” Alex said. “It’s hard for students to be as involved in some of the afterschool activities that we typically have at schools. It’s more of a sacrifice.”
Adding to that challenge is the fact that over half of Shoreline’s student body is Latino. Many parents do not speak English fluently, let alone have vocabulary sufficient to wade through the complex language of financial aid packets.
Though most of the dozen or so parents at last week’s presentation were monolingual Spanish-speakers, Ariana insists that it would be incorrect to perceive 10,000 Degrees as a program only for Latino students.
“That is not the case,” she said. “We serve all students. No matter their socioeconomic status, no matter their ethnicity, no matter their immigration status.”
Tomales Principal Adam Jennings told the Light that the high school has been moving toward more of a “college mentality” over the last three years, with students for whom college may not have ever crossed their minds now expecting to receive letters of acceptance. “Whether or not college is for everyone, the goal is for college to be an option, regardless of whether or not they want to go,” he said.
Mr. Jennings cited summer trips for freshmen and sophomores to visit colleges and Ariana’s mentorship for first-generation families as ways the district is creating a culture of expectation among students. After three years, Ariana’s fellowship will come to an end on May 31. She plans to pursue a master’s degree in higher education and student affairs, though she does not know yet which graduate school she will attend. But before leaving, she insists she will lend a hand to help her replacement, whoever that person may be.
“There definitely will be someone,” she said. “I feel like I’ve set up a foundation for whoever comes in to make it bigger and better.”
For more information about the 10,000 Degrees, visit 10000degrees.org.
This article was corrected on April 2 to reflect the actual number of students who have been accepted into and completed college with the help fof 10,000 Degrees: over 18,000, not 800. The 10,000 degree goal is for each of the communities the program serves.