After graduating from John F. Kennedy High School in Cleveland, Ohio, Nina Turner took a number of minimum-wage jobs, as did many young people in her neighborhood. The oldest of seven children, Turner was more interested in helping her single mother pay the bills than in advancing her education.
But, it was one nudge from her mother that changed everything: “You’re so smart. You need to go to college,” she recalls her mother’s words in a recent interview with Diverse.
Turner enrolled in Cuyahoga Community College, although she initially felt overwhelmed and dropped out. Later, remembering her mother’s encouragement, Turner re-enrolled with guidance from one of the school’s counselors.
From that point on, she soared, making the dean’s list, editing the school paper, getting involved in student issues, and, within a few years, Turner had earned her associate degree plus bachelor’s and master’s degrees from nearby Cleveland State University.
The challenges that Turner faced along the way would have halted a less-determined person. Her mother died unexpectedly at age 42, leaving Turner, who was then a 22-year-old sophomore at Cuyahoga Community College, and her police officer husband Jeffery, the task of caring for her six siblings and their own child, Jeffery Jr.
“It was really tough, a huge obstacle for my family,” she recalls, “because my mother wasn’t sick; she died of an aneurism without a life insurance policy and with no money in the bank.”
She credits Tri-C — as Cuyahoga is known — as well as her husband’s strength and support with keeping her on track. “If it were not for that community college, I would not have a degree,” Turner says. “There were so many professors there [who] took me under their wing. That’s the real mission of community colleges.”
