SPRINGFIELD — Late at night, he used to relax in the glow of the television as his mother finished her homework. Ezana Gebru, a sixth-grader at the time, would sprawl out in the green leather chair and watch reruns of old sitcoms, mainly "Seinfeld," before falling asleep.

Meanwhile, in the darkened living room, after a full day of work, an evening of college classes and the normal duties as mother to Ezana, his older brother and two younger sisters, Selamawit Asfaw would be at work once again: papers strewn across the table, math textbook open.

She'd earned that homework. She'd escaped persecution, learned a foreign language, traveled across an ocean and lived in abject poverty for the chance to do that homework.

She and Ezana's father, Zerebrook Gebru, had done that for themselves — yes, the Ethiopian refugees had worked their way into St. Louis' middle class — but more so, they'd done it to give their children the opportunities that have become American cliches.

"You're going to be a doctor," is what she'd tell Ezana when he was a child. He'd play along, but the notion never really sunk in.

Now 25, Ezana has idled in college for seven years and remains a semester away from bachelor's degrees in psychology and economics at Missouri State University. He has changed schools three times and has taken out loans every step of the winding way. And despite his parents' striving — a classic immigrant tale — Ezana is now on the same uncertain road as many young Americans of his generation.

A third of college students now transfer schools as Ezana did, and just 29 percent of Missouri students finish college in four years, below the national average of 33 percent. Over the past decade, average tuition has risen at least a few percentage points every year, and the average annual cost is now more than $10,000 per year at public universities and $28,000 for private universities. The result is an increasing average student debt — $25,000 for the graduating class of 2010 — according to the nonprofit Project on Student Debt.

Yet in 2011, more than half of recent college graduates were either jobless or underemployed, the highest rate in more than a decade, according to a recent census data analysis by researchers from Northeastern University, Drexel University and the Economic Policy Institute.

The findings are more fodder for the rising sentiment among Americans, according to a 2011 Gallup poll, that the current generation is unlikely to achieve a better life than their parents.

Read more at http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2012/07/04/ezana-immigrant-pro...