The unseen road

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, June 23rd. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Literacy.

There are more than six million adult learners in the United States. These are people over the age of 25 who are going back to school, sometimes for advanced degrees, other times to improve basic reading, writing, and math skills.

REICHARD: Adult education can unlock new careers, higher salaries, and even better health. 

WORLD’s Lauren Smyth has the story of a former adult student who overcame a disability to finally get her nursing degree.

LAUREN SMYTH: As a kid, Shyanne Ross was in and out of the hospital with complications from type I diabetes.

ROSS: I was just like the one that was like, ‘Oh, I don't have diabetes.’ I'm in denial. So I just did not take care of myself at all.

Stress and illness pulled Ross’s attention away from school. And her career aspirations didn’t require a degree anyway. She wanted to be a makeup artist, so she dropped out of high school and went on to do pageant styling and beauty for Miss Teen USA and other events. 

When her vision first began to blur, she assumed it must just be a mascara smudge. But the spots in her eyes didn’t go away.

ROSS: And when it happened, it happened quick. It went with the right one first, and then the left one. I could only see shadows at one point, and then it went black. And I'm like, I'm not going to the hospital unless I'm in a body bag. Like, I spent so much time as a kid in hospitals. I hate hospitals.

Going blind ended Ross’s career in the arts, so she began applying for other jobs. But the first question on almost every application was about her education—the high school diploma she didn’t have. Without that, she didn’t see a way forward.

ROSS: And I just think it got to a point where I was like, I'm in my mid-20s, I don't have an education. I need to do something for myself.

Like Ross, about 10% of U.S. adults are high-school dropouts. Those who don’t return to school earn lower wages on average than peers who did graduate, and their health tends to be worse.

Sharon Bonney is CEO of the Coalition on Adult Basic Education. She says the group is helping more than 3 million adult learners this year. But waitlists are long, and more than 40 million adults still need further education.

BONNEY: They just want that better job. They want to be able to sustain their family. And they come to adult basic education classes because they know this is their way up and out of that poverty and into the family-sustaining jobs.

Twenty-one percent of U.S. adults are functionally illiterate, meaning they can’t sound out or understand more than a few simple words. For these non-readers, street signs, food labels, medication paperwork, and posted warnings can conceal serious dangers.

BONNEY: I was just in the airport yesterday and a gentleman came up to me and couldn't read his ticket and asked me to help him. You know, it’s the basic things that if you're literate, you take for granted.

Ross knows firsthand the stigma that can come with asking for help. When she first enrolled in classes at her community college, she was older than most of her classmates. They didn’t understand her disability—why she showed up in the wrong classrooms, used a white cane to get around campus, and didn’t want to rely on government benefits.

ROSS: It was just like, “Oh my gosh.” And kids were just really cruel in the aspect that they were just like, “Why wouldn’t you just stay home and get your disability? Why do you have to be here?”

Still, Ross was determined. She studied for and passed her GED exam. Then, she enrolled in nursing school, even though she knew she might never be able to practice.

ROSS: Even if there's a small, small chance of me getting my vision back, I want to go full force with it. And I always did have, you know, a backup plan for my education if I couldn't do nursing.

For about a year, Ross’s new path went smoothly—until her dad found her unconscious. Her type 1 diabetes had left her in a coma.

ROSS: I spent 19 days on life support, had to learn how to walk again, talk again, do everything again. Spent 11 months just getting my strength to get back at it.

Her strength eventually returned. But surgery after surgery failed to restore her vision, and her dream of becoming a nurse seemed to be slipping away. 

Her doctors told her there was nothing more they could do, but Ross begged for one more chance.

ROSS: So I was like, ‘Can you please just go in there one more time, clean everything up that you can and just reattach what's left? Just, please, just, please, just give me one more try. And then, if not, it is what it is, and we'll go on from there.’

Ross got her surgery. At a follow-up appointment, doctors removed the eyepatch, and for the first time in years, Ross could tell the lights were on.

Over time, she regained most of her vision in one eye. That was enough for her to take her hands-on nursing exams and start working in a hospital. The place she had once dreaded was now an opportunity for her to help others.

ROSS: I tell everybody I’m the worst patient. Like, you think you’re a bad patient—I’m worse!

Ross is also a spokeswoman for the Coalition on Adult Basic Education, Sharon Bonney’s organization. She speaks at conferences around the country and regularly travels to D.C. to advocate for adult education.

ROSS: I look at the things that I’ve been able to do now, and I sit in rooms with senators and House members and have one-on-one meetings with them, and I talk about this. And it's like, who? I’m just little Shyanne. I don’t know left from right, and I now have the confidence to stand in those rooms and say, “This is important.”

Despite Ross’s testimony and similar stories from other adult learners, the Coalition’s funding was frozen last year during Trump administration efforts to review grant spending. Bonney says they get about $600 per adult learner from the federal government. By comparison, it costs taxpayers more than $16,000 to put a student through a year of public school.

BONNEY: I see a lot of weariness from our field. They're like frontline workers, really working in a hard to serve population. So this constant concern about being funded has been hard on them.

Still, Bonney and Ross say the real hurdle is encouraging students to start.

ROSS: Once they start, it's, it's addicting. Once you start doing good and you know you can do it—I mean, there's nothing you can't do at that point.

And with technology like YouTube, Khan Academy, and even AI, Bonney and Ross are hopeful that learning will continue far beyond the classroom.

For WORLD, I’m Lauren Smyth.

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