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For Many Puerto Ricans, College Plans Washed Away With Hurricane Maria

Yerianne Roldán and Zuleyka Avila are both seniors at Colonial High School in Orlando, scrambling to readjust their plans for college.
Elissa Nadworny
/
NPR
Yerianne Roldán and Zuleyka Avila are both seniors at Colonial High School in Orlando, scrambling to readjust their plans for college.

Yerianne Roldán wants to be a graphic designer, or maybe a writer, or maybe both. Her good friend and classmate, Zuleyka Avila, has already made up her mind. She's going to be a pediatrician.

Those plans hit a bump in the road this fall, though, when Hurricane Maria tore through Puerto Rico, where both girls lived with their families. Forced to leave the island — much of which is still without power — they've both relocated to Orlando.

They are among the more than 168,000 people from Puerto Rico who have arrived in Florida since Oct. 3. Schools have felt that influx, with about 7,200 displaced students enrolling from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands — Orlando's largest district has taken in more than 2,000 of those students.

Yerianne arrived a month ago. She and her family — her younger sister, her mom and her stepdad — are staying at a hotel by the airport. Zuleyka went to school in San Juan — now she's living in Orlando with her grandfather. Both girls are continuing senior year at Colonial High School, a public school where more than half of the 240 faculty and staff members have family ties to Puerto Rico, including the principal. The school has already enrolled nearly 100 students from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Colonial High School in Orlando has already enrolled nearly 100 students from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Elissa Nadworny / NPR
/
NPR
Colonial High School in Orlando has already enrolled nearly 100 students from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Both girls still miss their old schools and their friends and families. Zulekya says she's torn between embracing this new school and being sad about missing her senior year with all her friends from back home.

But this is their new reality.

At Colonial, there's a lot of attention on going to college. Which is why, a few weeks after they've both settled into their classes, they are called, together, to the college specialist's office.

Zuleyka is still struggling a bit with her English, so Yerianne helps translate. They're completely overwhelmed, they say, and have no idea where to start.

Avila wants to one day become a pediatrician.
Elissa Nadworny / NPR
/
NPR
Avila wants to one day become a pediatrician.

It's hard to start again, Zulekya says in Spanish. She already did this — back in Puerto Rico — sifting through the college choices, deciding which schools to apply to and studying and taking Puerto Rico's college entrance exam. To do it again, in a new place, she says that it's a lot of work. She is hoping to study biology and then go on to medical school. She's heard good things about the local community college — should she apply there, even though her GPA is high? Will her English hold her back?

Yerianne has lots of questions too: When applications ask for her permanent address, should she list the hotel? Or, should she put her stepdad's bother's house in Orlando? She keeps getting emails from a private school she's never heard of — is that worth applying to?

She thinks she wants to find a school with a good advertising program, but should she stay in Florida? She's thinking probably, yes.

Florida is where some of her extended family lives. In fact, this exodus of the island has been happening long before Hurricane Maria hit. And many of those people have come to the Florida. In fact, the state's Puerto Rican population has more than doubled over the past 14 years, according to an analysis by Pew Research Center. Orlando has been a popular place to land: In 2013, more than 300,000 Puerto Ricans lived in the Orlando metro area, the largest concentration of Puerto Ricans in the state.

The counselor shows the girls a list of state schools and helps them log into their online portals so they can search for programs and apply for scholarships.

Roldán moved from Puerto Rico to Orlando with her family for school. She wants to study advertising in college.
Elissa Nadworny / NPR
/
NPR
Roldán moved from Puerto Rico to Orlando with her family for school. She wants to study advertising in college.

As the girls file out of his office, they seem more optimistic. There are help sessions during lunch and after school. There's a woman who can guide them through the federal financial aid form (FAFSA) next week. And they're both signed up to take the SAT in a few days, a test neither has really had time to study for, but upon which, it feels to them, much of their future depends.

"I'm starting to make a plan," says Zulekya. Yerianne nods her head in agreement, "I didn't even know where my path started, and I needed support because I can't do this alone. So, at least he helped me with a place to start."

Amid all this, two schools in Orlando awarded both Yerriane and Zuleyka scholarships — so that's lifted some weight off their shoulders. Yerrianne says it gave her a confidence boost too.

"The scholarship has definitely alleviated some financial stress," she says. "It makes me feel better, smarter. It confirms that I'm capable of doing everything I set my mind to."

Isabel Dobrin, an NPR digital news intern, contributed to this report.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Elissa Nadworny
Elissa Nadworny reports on all things college for NPR, following big stories like unprecedented enrollment declines, college affordability, the student debt crisis and workforce training. During the 2020-2021 academic year, she traveled to dozens of campuses to document what it was like to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic. Her work has won several awards including a 2020 Gracie Award for a story about student parents in college, a 2018 James Beard Award for a story about the Chinese-American population in the Mississippi Delta and a 2017 Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in innovation.