a challenging demographic, says wallin c.e.o. susan ki >> if you are a student of color, firstn your family and you're low income, the likelihood of completing a four- year degree is about 12%. among all students that enter a 2%ur-year program, about 6 will complete a degr. >> reporter: but among wallin students, that graduion rate is one and a half times higher, at 92%. the main reason: a high level of support all along the way, from donors and mostly from eight staff advisors, providing assistance colleges don't usually offer, says stephen lewis, a retired college president who chairs the wallin board. >> having in my experience at carleton and other places saying well, "she's an 18 year old, she's a 20 year old, she makes her own decisions." not our advisors our advisors say "fred, i wderstand you weren't in chemistry last weet's going on, do we need to talk?" so very intrusive if you like, k t very supportive. >> yesterday i ttest. it was a struggle. i honestly wonder if i should reevaluate my finance major. >> reporter: step

here to walk us to political predictions is pollster and gop strategist justin wallin.oining us, happy new year to you. let's begin with your first prediction, that democrats will stoke economic fears and scare us towards this recession. >> we have an economy where the fundamentals are terrific, they are very good and the president has a lot of credit to take for that, tax cuts, regulatory relief, second-quarter gdp growth of 4.2% in the past year that just left us. kind of done too much and anything short of that could be perceived as failure. we have volatility in the stock market as a trade wars going on, the government shutdown and democrats will capitalize on that and they are going, what we will see is reemergence of james carville's it's the economy, stupid. not really looking at the fundamentals but looking at the things that are making the news right now, the engine still chugging along quite well. heather: based on news coverage will it be based in reality? some of these polls yesterday on the economy, 51% of people think the direction of the country is pretty