Science
Can $1,000 a month help more students land nursing careers? An L.A. pilot effort says yes
Community colleges play a critical role in addressing California’s persistent demand for healthcare workers, preparing students to become the state’s next generation of nurses, medical assistants and physical therapy aides.
But in the Los Angeles Community College District, where more than half of all students report incomes near or below the poverty line, many people struggle to complete their degrees while also holding down jobs to pay rent, buy groceries and cover child-care costs.
A pilot program at the L.A. district — the state’s largest, with nine colleges and 194,000 students — aims to address these seemingly intractable challenges with a targeted remedy: $1,000 a month in guaranteed income.
Late last year, the district launched an initiative that provides cash payments for 12 months to 251 students with a demonstrated financial need who are pursuing health careers. The funding is unrestricted, so participants can use the money however they see fit.
The goal of the effort, dubbed Building Outstanding Opportunities for Students to Thrive, or BOOST, is to eliminate financial insecurity so that students can focus on achieving their academic goals and the college system can deliver a diverse, multilingual healthcare workforce to serve L.A. in the process.
The Times followed one student through the first months of the new initiative to learn how a guaranteed basic income might influence the lives and choices of L.A. community college students.
“I want to give him opportunities, and in order to do that, I have to get ahead,” Adriana Orea, a single mom, says of her decision to pursue a career as a registered nurse.
Adriana Orea, 32, has known for years that she wanted to pursue a career in nursing. She had worked for a time as a licensed vocational nurse, and found the experience rewarding. But after giving birth to a son two years ago, she set her sights on a higher-paying position as a registered nurse, which generally requires a bachelor’s degree from an accredited nursing program.
“I want to give him opportunities, and in order to do that, I have to get ahead,” said Orea, a single mother. “I don’t want him to feel like he’s missing out on something because I’m not able to provide it for him.”
She had recently returned to school, enrolling at L.A. City College in the prerequisite courses she’ll need to get accepted into a nursing school, when she was selected for BOOST. She received her first cash payment on Thanksgiving.
“I feel very blessed to have been picked,” she told The Times a few days later. “At the same time, I feel like I want to be very responsible with this, because it’s not something to be taken lightly.”
Orea lives with her parents and her curly-haired 2-year-old, Kevin, in a rent-controlled building near MacArthur Park. In early December, she was taking three classes and working eight hours a week at the front desk of the college counseling department — a position she got through the state’s welfare-to-work program.
Adriana Orea says her parents, both Mexican immigrants who work night shifts as janitors, are crucial partners in helping raise her son, Kevin.
She is quick to express gratitude for her parents, who are crucial partners in helping raise her son. Her parents, both Mexican immigrants who work night shifts as janitors, watch Kevin while Orea is on campus. She covers most of the family’s food expenses with her CalFresh benefits, spending between $500 and $600 a month on groceries, and also pitches in for rent.
“It’s just been living on a budget, which is definitely doable, because I have so much support,” she said.
Of the first $1,000 payment, she spent about $600 on outstanding bills for Kevin’s newborn check-ups that had resulted from a lapse in health insurance. She also used some of the money to buy Christmas gifts for her family and a holiday outfit for herself. She received the second payment in mid-December, and was determined to not dip into it.
“I’m just treating it like I’m not receiving it,” she said.
By January, she already felt more financially secure, having squirreled away $1,000 and knowing more would be coming.
“I might actually have something in the back pocket,” she said. “It’s not just a paycheck-to-paycheck thing.”
Adriana Orea says the $1,000 a month she gets through BOOST has made a world of difference in her stress levels: “I can literally just concentrate on studying for my classes.”
More than 150 guaranteed income pilot programs have launched nationwide in recent years, but BOOST is one of the first focused on community college students.
Proponents tout unconditional cash as a way to provide greater stability to vulnerable community members. But as the concept has gained steam, it has also spurred backlash. Several Republican-led state legislatures are banning or trying to preempt cities and counties from launching direct cash initiatives, arguing publicly funded programs are a waste of taxpayer resources.
The BOOST program is privately funded with more than $3.1 million from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and $867,500 from the California Community Foundation’s Young Adults Forward Fund. It represents a rare philanthropic investment in California community college students, who number 2.1 million statewide. Typically, more than half of California high school graduates start at a community college.
There is a “massive mismatch of where private philanthropic dollars go and where students in California go to school, particularly if we think about low-income, first-generation and students of color,” said Kelly King, executive director of the Foundation for the Los Angeles Community Colleges. “This level of investment in community college students is very unusual, unfortunately, but it’s very much needed.”
To be eligible for BOOST, students must have selected a health-related major and express interest in pursuing a health career, as well as have a demonstrated financial need and be considered low-income for L.A. County. Participants in the pilot were selected by lottery, with 251 receiving the monthly payments and an additional 370 enrolled in a control group.
Of the total participants, 72% are female, 65% are Hispanic or Latino, and 29% report that the primary language in their household is Spanish, according to data provided by the community college district. The average annual household income is $31,853, and 47% report having children in the household.
Like other pilots, BOOST is designed as a research study. In this case, the Center for Guaranteed Income Research at the University of Pennsylvania is analyzing how the unrestricted payments effect the well-being of students and what role it might play in keeping them on track in completing their healthcare degrees.
“Lack of basic needs, food insecurity and unexpected financial shocks create barriers for students that often push them out of education,” said Amy Castro, the center’s co-founder and faculty director. “Dreaming about your future should be a feature of young adulthood that is open to all — not just the wealthy or those with the good fortune to have ironclad access to higher education.”
Among other benefits, Adriana Orea says the money she is saving through BOOST has allowed her to start an emergency fund in case she or her son falls ill and she can’t work.
By mid-February, the guaranteed payments had made a big difference in Orea’s life.
Determined to take advantage of the financial support, she enrolled in four classes for the spring semester. She felt as if her momentum was snowballing, and realized that with better time management, she could also take on a few more hours at work and make a bit more money.
Despite having more on her plate, Orea seemed less stressed. Knowing she didn’t need to hold down a full-time job, or a second part-time gig, to support her son was in itself a huge relief.
“I can literally just concentrate on studying for my classes,” she said.
She had started amassing an emergency fund in case she or Kevin gets sick and she’s unable to work.
She was also feeling more comfortable spending the money. She bought her family a Valentine’s Day lunch at Sizzler, treating her mom to the buffet and her dad to his favorite steak and shrimp dish. She took Kevin to Big Bear to see snow. And if she ran out of time to pack a lunch from home, she didn’t stress about grabbing a sandwich at a doughnut shop near campus.
“I see my bank account going up — I feel like I’m saving,” she said. So, she’s able to tell herself: “This is not a big splurge, I can treat myself.”
By early April, Orea had received $5,000 through BOOST.
She opened a high-yield savings account, with the goal of using her money to make money. She purchased Disneyland tickets to celebrate her mom’s 60th birthday. She had recently received two parking tickets, and while she said she was disappointed to lose money, it wasn’t the crisis hit to her budget that it would have been in the past.
She said receiving the cash — and knowing it was temporary — has made her “laser-focused” on her goals: Finish her prerequisite courses this spring; work part-time as a licensed vocational nurse this summer while studying for her nursing school entrance exam; then apply to schools in the fall and start a nursing program next spring.
“Having this opportunity made me take a hard look at myself and be like, ‘This is what you want. How are you going to get there? Take advantage that you have this,’” she said.
At the same time, her horizons have expanded. Receiving the guaranteed income had freed her from the suffocating sensation of constantly worrying about money.
“Once you feel like there’s one less thing stressing you out, you just feel this relief,” she said. “It clears your mind a little more and you just feel less stressed about everything else.”
Orea said she expects the money she has saved through BOOST will smooth her transition to nursing school. She hopes to receive financial aid to attend a nursing program at L.A. City College or a Cal State university, but said she would take out loans if needed to attend a more expensive private school. She plans to live at home and pick up a couple of shifts each week as a licensed vocational nurse while in school, but said her savings from this year should help ensure she isn’t stretched thin during the two-year program.
She will likely remain in L.A. County after nursing school, she said. She worked in geriatrics previously, but is interested in exploring work in a birthing or neonatal unit. No matter where she works, she will use her Spanish fluency to communicate with patients and their families.
This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.
Jose “Moke” Simon III recalls as a child in the ‘70s watching the creeks that flow into Clear Lake in Northern California turn black with fish — a fish found only in these waters — as they made their springtime run.
Someone would call from the neighboring reservation with the news: “The hitch are running!” Everybody would grab their ice chests and pile into cars.
“They ran so thick in the rivers, you didn’t even need a pole,” said Simon, now chair of the Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians. “You’d just get in there and splash them out of the river, or catch them in your shirt.”
But those days are gone. As Clear Lake, which sits in Lake County, north of Napa, faces mercury contamination, toxic algal blooms and predatory invasive fish, the Clear Lake hitch — known by local tribes as the chi — are in serious trouble. Another fish unique to the watershed, the Clear Lake splittail, is already extinct.
After years of advocacy and on-the-ground work to save the fish, the seven tribes around the lake signed an agreement with state agencies and local governments Friday to formally co-manage the troubled body of water. Nearly two centuries after Europeans took over these lands, it’s a literal watershed: the first agreement governing a watershed since the state launched an initiative to bring 7% of California’s lands and waters under the care of tribes.
Native Americans perform during an event at Clear Lake, where seven tribes signed on with state agencies and local governments to formally co-manage the Clear Lake watershed, the first agreement of its kind under a new state tribal stewardship initiative.
(/Calif. Natural Resources Agency)
The tribes hope it will turn their ad hoc emergency work — which has coincided with an increase of chi in the lake — into a lasting strategy to protect the fish.
“I really hope it’s going to solidify the long-term success and vitality of this fish for the next seven generations,” Simon said, who described the signing as the most government agencies he’s ever seen come together in the region.
As far back as stories go, the chi have been vital for the region’s Indigenous people. Every year, Pomo nations would gather at the south end of the lake to catch and dry the fish that would sustain them throughout the year, Simon said.
But nearly two centuries ago, European settlers started fracturing this relationship.
Settlers began arriving by the 1840s. A pair of particularly brutal white ranchers enslaved and starved Pomo villagers, murdered men on a whim and raped women and children. Eventually, the Indigenous locals rose up and killed them. In response, on May 15, 1850, armed vigilantes and the U.S. Army slaughtered hundreds of tribal members.
The following year, the U.S. government promised the tribes reservations but failed to create them. What they got instead, decades later, were much smaller “rancheria” reservations that the government again terminated in 1950s. Without oversight of the land, protecting the chi has been an upstream battle.
“We don’t own the land, but we certainly feel like we have an immense responsibility to be good stewards and caretakers of the land,” said Danielle Cirelli, chair of the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake.
As for fish, settlers had begun introducing nonnative species by the late 1800s for sport fishing. They proved to be invasive. Today there are more than 20 introduced species still in the lake that kick up sediment, destroy the plants the chi live among and eat their eggs.
A view of milky way during a meteor shower at Clear Lake in 2024.
(Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu via Getty Images)
In the 1920s, a modest mercury mine grew into a large open-pit operation, contaminating the watershed with the toxic metal. The mercury made its way into the fish, posing a risk to tribal members who relied on the chi for food.
To make matters worse, Clear Lake has struggled with dramatic blooms of toxic algae, spurred by stretches of hot summer days with little wind. As the warm water sits still at the top, oxygen no longer circulates to the bottom. This sets off a chemical reaction freeing phosphorus, a primary nutrient for the algae, from the lake floor. The heat, low oxygen and toxic algae all harm the chi.
Globally, these kinds of blooms are increasingly common as human-caused emissions continue to warm the Earth.
It’s “death by a thousand cuts,” said Steve Sadro, UC Davis environmental science and policy department chair who works on Clear Lake rehabilitation.
In 2017, Clear Lake’s dire condition led the state to establish a blue ribbon commission, with tribal participation, focused on cleaning up the lake to bolster the local boating and fishing economy. But drought struck the region in the early 2020s — shrinking the streams where the chi spawn. The tribes began sounding the alarm and the state set up a Clear Lake Hitch Task Force with the tribes.
The result has been a surge of activity in recent years, much of it spearheaded by the tribes.
UC Davis developed a device that pumps oxygen from a tank onshore to the bottom of the lake to combat the algae problem. The Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians monitors water quality for algal blooms and cleans up spawning creeks that get clogged with sediment and trash.
The Robinson Rancheria of Pomo Indians tracks and removes invasive fish like carp and goldfish and now plans to start setting fire to tule — a giant grass-like plant that the chi rely on for shelter — to help it grow better. The Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake catch and tag the chi to better understand their behavior.
The tribes also have worked together after rains to orchestrate rescue missions for chi that are trapped in puddles, offshoots and agricultural ditches.
“This co-management agreement is really putting pen to paper on what is already happening on the ground,” said Geneva E.B. Thompson, deputy secretary for tribal affairs at the California Natural Resources Agency. It’s “a beautiful example of what shared decision-making can look like for a watershed, for a fish species.”
Simon hopes it moves the tribes one step closer to freely catching the chi again, like he did as a child.
“That would be something to see,” he said, “before I’m back in the earth.”
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