Why this Nashville woman is headed back to college two decades after dropping out
Jason Gonzales
At times, Doris Dryden felt like the world didn't want her to succeed.
If someone wasn't holding her back, then there was someone pushing her down.
During her first stint in college when she was 21, she listened to friends who told her not to go to class, something she looks back on as a mistake more than 20 years later. No one at Nashville State Community College prepared her for the college experience, she said.
"I started to think that maybe I wasn't meant to be successful," Dryden said. "Sometimes people don't want you to live better. Sometimes, they don't want you to succeed. The crab in the bucket mentality is real and people want you to be trapped with them."
But things are changing for Dryden.
She went to community college this year for free courtesy of Tennessee Reconnect. Reconnect offers Tennessee residents 25 or older the chance at a college education free of tuition and fees.
It was the right time to go back to college, she said, and she won't let anyone or anything hold her back this time — not even a black 1996 Ford Thunderbird with a door that doesn't close fully that she drives to school.
"I keep my hand here," she said, grasping the door handle and pulling it tight toward her. "I hold it like this and if I hear it pop, I know it will swing out and hold it. It won't swing open unless I turn a corner."
Parts of the city left behind
Nashville faces a large population of residents without at least an associate degree, mainly concentrated in large pockets to the north of the city's center. Dryden is one of them.
But now, she and many others like her are headed back to college through Reconnect. It's a population the state is targeting as it works to reach its goal of getting at least 55 percent of residents equipped with a postsecondary degree or certificate.
Dryden dropped out of college in her 20s and struggled financially ever since. She has worked numerous odd jobs, including cleaning hotels and homes. Dryden is from North Nashville, an area largely passed over by the city's current boom.
The neighborhood where she lives holds one of Nashville's lowest rates of residents with an associate degree or higher — 27 percent in ZIP code 37218.
The rate hasn't changed much between 2011 to 2016, according to an analysis from Vanderbilt University professor Will Doyle.
A decade ago, Dryden enrolled in the University of Phoenix's online programs, but she said she didn't have the discipline to make it work. She became certified through Kaplan University as a medical office specialist.
Still, Dryden, already the mother of three children, struggled.
'I am a success story'
Dryden periodically was on government assistance, depending on how much her job paid. She worked around the clock, but never made enough money to feel comfortable.
"When I had my fourth child, I looked back and said, 'I don't have anything to give my kids,'" she said. "My mom was still helping me out ... I was working dead-end jobs and they weren't taking me anywhere. I told myself that I have to do something better."
Through Reconnect, Dryden said she saw another chance.
College as a 44-year-old is different this time, she said, both for better and worse. She's surrounded herself with people that she said will support her in her journey. But it's hard being one of the few older people in the room and so removed from studying.
She still has a family life to balance.
But she won't let herself fail.
"Education is something no one can take back from me," she said. "Completing this, I can say to Nashville, 'Hey, look at me, I am a success story.'"
About the reporting
The USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee, with support from the Education Writers Association Reporting Fellowship program, spent months examining Tennessee’s closely watched efforts to expand college access and improve graduation rates, especially for black, Latino and poor students.
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