In this week’s podcast, I decided to share my personal journey from poor girl in the projects to #DebtFreeDegree Expert.
You can LISTEN, WATCH, or READ the transcript below!
PS. Get 3 months of access to the #DebtFreeDegree community, where you get a step by step system that’ll show you how to get your kid into college and DEBT FREE for only $36!
Hey hey hey everybody! How are you doing? I am so glad to come to you today, and tell you just a bit about my story, how a poor girl from the projects. From the bricks. From the hood. Started from the bottom now we’re here! How she became, how I became the debt-free degree expert.
So for those of you who don’t know me my name is Treasure Shields Redmond and I am known as the debt-free degree expert. I help
busy parents of college bound teens secure top-tier education without massive debt, and I do that at www.gettheacceptanceletter.online.
So, how did I get here? How did I become the debt-free degree expert and starting from the projects? So first of all let’s put a pin in it right there for people who don’t know what the projects are. Over in England they call them the estates. Basically it is housing where your rent is tailored to your income
because there are some people, a rather large population of people, who are like my grandmother. My grandmother was the breadwinner in our family. She took care of us and she was a maid which meant that she worked everyday but still did not make enough money in order to afford regular market rent. So she qualified as a low income earner for the federal housing projects. So it was my grandmother who was a maid and who had finished the equivalent of probably middle school, and my mother who was present and loving but battled mental illness. So the execution for my college journey just wasn’t there for her. She had to take care of her symptoms which became overwhelming at
times, so although, as I said, both of them were present and loving gave me a lot of positive talk — you know, told me I was smart enough to be a teacher just don’t get pregnant.
Luckily there were a group of caring women in my sphere because the the village was in action, and all of these women had been members of and were current members but had graduated from college and now
were graduate members of an African-American sorority named Delta
Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. And these these women gave me a $500 book scholarship to college. So, armed with my five hundred dollar book scholarship to college, my knowledge that a lot of black people, other black people in my community had gone to Jackson State, I took what I was able to qualify for through the FAFSA, my little book scholarship and I went to Jackson State. So during that time Jackson State might have been about 16 K a year, so you know take away a couple of thousands for the FAFSA and the book scholarship and times that times four and you’ll see that I was in some pretty substantial student loan debt when I left Jackson State.
So I eventually graduated with an English degree and then got certified to teach grades 7 through 12 and went on to become a high school English teacher. And while at the high school level I was working with college bound teens, and then I moved to the college arena where I became a college professor — an assistant professor of English — and all totaled I taught high school for about a decade (ten years) and I taught college for about a decade, or ten years. So I was always working with kids who were headed to college or kids who had just entered college.
And I became that teacher that would pull people to the side that would help them you know write scholarship winning essays, or fill out the FAFSA, or you know pull together their transcripts, or a college resume. You know kind of tutor them on the English or reading portions of the SAT or the ACT, and the writing portions, you know goad them into taking a more rigorous schedule. “Yes, I understand you could stop at algebra two, but why don’t you try calculus? You’ve been good at math. It would help for you to have
four maths on your high school transcript if you’re interested in going to college .” Those types of conversations I would have privately with kids and with their families and through those interactions I built up a skillset and a knowledge base that allows me to now be called the debt-free degree expert.
But that’s not all! I also became a mother, and in 2009 my marriage ended and I moved from Memphis, Tennessee to the St. Louis metropolitan. I had a two-year-old daughter and a nine-year-old son, and let me tell you about my son: he is fantastic, brilliant, kind, amazing writer, you know very intuitive, sweet, big black man, but you know that school piece was difficult for him. He had learning differences. It was hard for him to enter and exit conversations, socially very awkward, quiet, shy, and really needing accommodations in the classroom. Social help. And I knew even at nine years old that I was going to have to get on a consistent and persistent scholarship application program in order to make sure that he was in good school so that he could be around college-bound peers and receive the instruction that would help him get into a good college and do it debt-free. I also knew that I was going to have to develop some systems in order to streamline this because I worked and I was parenting alone so I could not turn this into you know a whole other job.
Through my mothering and ushering my son through the college access process and then through my 20 years of ushering lots of college bound teens and college bound families through the college access process I became the debt-free degree expert. So that’s how it happened. That’s how a poor girl from the PJs, from the projects, sits before you now as the debt-free degree expert.
I really enjoy sharing this with you. I really I like to take a moment and pause and tell my story. You know it helps people and so many of the parents that I serve they don’t have my exact story they might not be African-American, they might not be women, they might not have come from you know a background as poor as mine, but most of the people I serve they weren’t given college on a silver platter. They weren’t born with the silver spoon in their mouth. It took some work. A lot of them have their own student loan debt that they’re still paying off and all of them are like me in that they have a vision for their kids’ lives that includes health, wealth, prosperity, safety, and we know that college is one of the main ways to achieve that. But they often just don’t know where to start. So when they meet me the overwhelm is alleviated. The confusion is gone. They’re given a clear system, step-by-step with videos and printables of how to get their kid into college and how to do it debt-free.
If you want to know more about what I do and how I can help you and your college bound family, holler at you girl at www.gettheacceptanceletter.online.
I love talking with you. Comment below! Let me know what you’re struggling with. Give me some feedback on this story. You know, let me know any other Mississippians out there, or single moms out there, HBCU graduates
out there, members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority out there. Let me know and I will see you next time !
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