These are the sentiments encountered by countless students as they plan their way through the junior college system. All at the same time, many students work to support their families, study hard with the goal of entering a chosen career, and struggle against unfair derision. This last comes from many sources, even the ones closest to home.

“I feel like I’ve wasted enough time, just in school in general as it is,” said Jerrick Salazar, who is 20. “I haven’t tried as much as I should have. I could be in a better position, but I’m not.”

Salazar is from Daly City. His single mother is raising four children, himself included. Both he and his oldest sister work, but money is still an issue. Noting his family’s skepticism at the idea of more school for more money, he relates his personal trials to their input, but also to his own inner feelings of low self-worth. He often feels like a failure.

“I kind of just need to prove to myself, to prove to my family, that I can do these kinds of things,” he said. “That I can finish school, go into whatever major. I kind of want to prove it, both to my family and to myself. But no one’s going to believe me if I’m just taking everything really casually. I don’t want to spend more time than I need to.”

The California Community Colleges System doesn’t want him to either. California has the most community colleges in the country, with 112 campuses and over 2 million students. The parade of statistics that state and system officials march out year to year mark what they see as a crisis: students are taking longer to graduate than the efficient machine of the two-year degree granting system requires. Their tuition and fees, along with special tax measures, cover the entire operating budget of the system, with general fund contributions from the state rounding off to zero in most districts.

By overstaying their welcome at the community college level, students are losing wages that they could be earning as contributing members of the workforce. In August 2014, Brice Harris, chancellor of the California Community Colleges System, told the Los Angeles Times that if California did not start sending more graduates to work, it would “begin to lose its competitive edge.”

The message is clear: leave school, go to work.

What this presumption fails to account for is the plurality of community college students who are already working. They contribute to the proverbial workforce already by maintaining a demanding work schedule alongside their classes. Many Skyline students are even doing this for the express purpose of paying their college fees, which can be high. Others are doing it because they feel the need to help their families out.

“I pay for a little bit of rent; I pay for the cell phones, electricity,” Jennifer McAdams said. “I’m willing to help out my mom, because she deserves help.”

McAdams is 25. She graduated high school in 2008, but she said this was hard work after failing and withdrawing from a handful of classes. In 2012, she got a job working 35 hours a week at a toy store. She decided to cut her work week to 24 hours when she came to Skyline. After she graduates next spring, she wants to transfer to CSU East Bay, at which point she plans to leave her job entirely to focus on becoming a child psychologist.

“It’s not about just passing classes for me,” she said. “It’s about gathering information and keeping that with me.”

The peculiar calculus of community college is typified in her story: the longer McAdams stays in community college, the longer she will continue to work. After she graduates, she will leave the workforce in pursuit of a more lucrative and, therefore, competitive position, which she may or may not ever attain.

Arnelle Justin, a 19-year-old from San Francisco, also works. She wants to be a parole officer. This year, she cut her hours from 60 per week at two jobs to 20 per week at one job in order to concentrate on her classes, which she says has made a world of difference.

“I’m taking it one semester at a time,” she said.

Her pressure to graduate comes, in part, from her mother.

“She makes me feel like if I take just a couple classes a semester, I’ll be here all my life,” Justin said.

Working less has relieves some of the struggle, but there are other factors. Without getting into them too deeply, Justin made it clear that patience and perseverance were the keys to success, in her experience. If someone were in her position – starting on the way toward a community college degree, working, balancing life – her advice would be simple.

“I would say to come in prepared, ready, and focused,” Justin said. “Because I wasn’t when I first started.”