College can be difficult for any student, with worries over financial aid and family demands to make a living often leading community college students out of the classroom.
But Tarrant County College is working to change that for a group of students most prone to leaving, African-American and Latino men.
At the Student Life Center at the Trinity River Campus, it's not unusual to see a group of students and TCC employees talking about college, life and developing skills.
"What we do is we teach them about the campus resources and we teach them how to use those resources," said adviser Freddie Sandifer.
Resources, conversations and workshops are happening these days because of something Sandifer noticed several years ago.
"By eight weeks into the semester, half of them would be dropped out," Sandifer said.
Men of color, African-Americans and Latinos, had a 40-percent drop-out rate in 2012 on the Trinity River Campus.
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"We knew if we could educate them and mentor them through the process, then that would turn that around," Sandifer said.
Sandifer started and now leads TCC's Men of Color Mentoring program. And four years later the drop-out rate on campus has dropped to just 15 percent. Students like Luis Prado, who's been in the program since he started at TCC, are staying in school despite hardships.
"What if I don't get enough money back with these scholarships, or what if I can't pay for my classes – books are pretty expensive," Prado said, of the challenges he faced last spring.
Prado said Sandifer, his mentor in the program, helped find a way for him to stay in school and keep working.
For Keland Busby, an aspiring clothing designer, issues outside of school gave him pause in his time at TCC, but he said the program and mentors have kept him on course.
"That structure, I don't think I'd have had the same structure if I wouldn't have been involved in this program," Busby said. "So most definitely I would have went a different way."
Success stories like that took the program on the Trinity River Campus to all TCC campuses. And now it's expanding out of the county.
"They came down, sat with us for a whole day to kind of study our program," said Sandifer.
That school was from Waco, which has now started a similar program. Sandifer also said Dallas Community College has shown interest in learning about the program as well.
Sandifer's program started with just 12 students, graduated 31 last spring and currently has 300.
"The potential is endless," he said. "I could see us definitely getting a thousand mentees."
Many mentees have already moved on to four year schools, Busby and Prado plan to do the same thanks to the program.
"They'll help you build your foundation for success," Prado said. "It's definitely something I recommend."
Sandifer believes the program does more than just benefit these young men in the classroom. It also helps in their home lives and communities.
"And that will change our community, and if we have a better community we'll have a better livelihood for everybody," he said.
It's all thanks to conversations like those taking place outside his office.