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Just after 6 p.m. on a brisk mid-October evening, the hum of conversation filled a physics lab at South Seattle College. Mateo Moreno-McQuarrie leaned over a small whiteboard, debating how to draw an accelerating car.

“It’s gonna be a box on wheels,” he said, grinning to the classmate seated next to him.

It had been a long day — his first class started at 8 a.m. — but the 19-year-old didn’t seem to mind. For him, the late nights are part of a la

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