“Having a brain injury can be extremely isolating,” said Dr. The Columbia chapter - set to become an official student group this month - will likely include military veterans, as more than 700 are enrolled across its 18 schools. This past spring, he founded New York City’s first chapter of Synapse, a national organization started at Stanford University in 2016 to build support groups for those with brain injuries.Īt Stanford, athletes who’ve suffered concussions and bicyclists who’ve been in accidents are among the members of Synapse. With his spleen split and skull fractured, Jumani spent 23 days in a coma.Īfter a year of hospital stays and rehabilitation, Jumani was well enough to resume his studies.

Luke’s Hospital told police he would likely die. In June 2017, weeks after finishing his first year of college at Columbia University, Shariq Jumani was struck by a car while crossing Riverside Drive near campus. Credit: NYTCREDIT: Sarah Blesener for The New York Times Shariq Jumani on the Columbia University campus in New York City. “I was up for hours working on it, looking up words,” she said. Her first assignment was to write a paragraph about a half-page book excerpt. Three days later, though, she thought she would have to quit. Two years ago, she took a leap of faith, walked into Clark College and enrolled. Kentucky, Tennessee and California have similar programs.īlanco scraped by without her diploma, working long hours in dentists’ offices for close to 20 years while raising two daughters. And they are earning college credentials at a significant rate. Over the past four years, participation in I-BEST (Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training), one of the programs that helped Blanco, has increased by about 50 percent, with more than 3,200 students now enrolled. The state makes it possible for students who complete an associate degree at any of the state’s 34 community or technical colleges to receive their high school diplomas as well, bypassing the GED exam altogether.

Blanco, now 40, was among the roughly 27 million adults age 25 or older who don’t have a high school diploma, even as more and more good jobs require college degree.įortunately for her, Washington state was trying to solve both those problems simultaneously, by allowing students to earn college credits as they worked toward a high school diploma.

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