College enrollment numbers plummeted in Wisconsin during the pandemic. Milwaukee Public Schools is trying to reverse that trend by making the FAFSA a graduation requirement.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid is a key college enrollment indicator. It unlocks college scholarships and loans, but the paperwork can be complicated. Last year, only half of MPS seniors completed the FAFSA, down from more than 70% in 2019.
So far, the district’s FAFSA numbers aren’t much higher than last year. But some schools, like Milwaukee Marshall, are completing FAFSAs at a faster rate than in 2021.
At Marshall, that progress is in large part due to college and career center (CACC) advisor Parice Beckley.
On Nov. 30 at the Marshall CACC, Beckley's attention is being pulled in many directions. It's the day before college applications are due at some schools, including Marquette University.
"We have seniors in the center working on college applications, we have some working on their college admission essays," Beckley says. "One student is here to do her FAFSA so she’s kinda waiting on me to jumpstart that process. And we have a student that's early graduating, we have to review her Marquette essay."
Ever since the federal student aid application opened on Oct. 1, Beckley has been urging seniors to fill out the FAFSA. She tells them, it doesn’t mean you have to go to college. It doesn’t mean you have to take out loans. It just gives you access to financial aid.
"I tell the students all the time, you never want to be in a situation where you’re your own roadblock or obstacle," Beckley says. "If this is the one thing you can do in your power, your control—take care of it. You never know what could come down the pipeline."
Beckley says she hasn’t been using the graduation requirement to convince students, instead, she's using incentives.
"Like we’re currently looking to plan a movie day to go see Black Panther 2," Beckley says. "I would rather students not feel like it's a punishment if they don't get it done."
Marshall’s college-going rates dropped from 35% in 2019 to 14% in 2020. Numbers from the past two years aren’t available yet. Beckley is working one student at a time to pitch college as an option and help with the paperwork.
Today, you can see her persuasion at work. A senior named Mikhi Terry stops in to grab a few chips from his friends. But Beckley has other plans for him.
"Mr. Terry, are you here to start your FAFSA as well?" Beckley asks him.
"I mean I wasn’t, but I could," Terry says.
"But we are," Beckley says.
Beckley sets Terry up with a Chromebook and tells him to go to studentaid.gov. She hovers over his shoulder, walking him through which boxes to check. Less than hour later, Terry’s FAFSA is complete.
"He finished! You are done! Yay!" Beckley says.
Beckley tells Terry to go to the whiteboard, where she’s tracking Marshall’s FAFSA completions. Right now, the number stands at 22. Terry erases it and writes 23.
"Congratulations, you got the Jordan number," Beckley says. "Dang, if you had waited you’d have the Kobe number."
At this time last year, just 14 Marshall students had completed a FAFSA.
Terry, who came into Beckley’s room to steal a few chips, now has a key step of the college application process done and he’s learned he qualifies for the full federal Pell grant, more than $8,000. The Pell grant is awarded based on family income.
"It was simpler than I thought it was going to be, for the most part," Terry says. "At first I wasn’t going to go [to college] because of expenses and stuff like that. But that just made me feel a little better about it."
Terry is planning to apply to two-year and four-year colleges in Wisconsin, potentially to study sports medicine, he says.
Completing the FAFSA isn’t always simple—it often requires students’ parents to dig for financial information. That helps explain why most seniors at Marshall—172 of them—haven’t completed the FAFSA yet. After Terry, make that 171.
"Slow and steady wins the race," Beckley says.
The fact that the FAFSA is now a graduation requirement hasn’t made a dent in MPS’s overall numbers yet. College Access Coordinator Ericca Pollack says about 26% of seniors have completed the application, which is about the same rate as this time last year. She expects a big push later in the school year.
"It’s the families that we see completing later that need the additional support," Pollack says. "Students and families may still be weighing college as an option, based on different circumstances. So I expect that that’s when we’ll see our significant uptick is really in the later months, working with those families to make sure they have everything they need to be successful."
Families can opt out of the FAFSA requirement if they choose. Pollack says less than 10 have officially opted out so far.
Meanwhile, at Marshall, student Mia Rogers is researching whether UW-Whitewater has a major that interests her. Rogers is interested in African American studies, biomedical science and psychology. She says she wasn’t really thinking about college until she talked to Beckley and filled out the FAFSA.
"And then, it’s like once you get into it, you realize how fun and how much knowledge you’ll have when you go to college," Rogers says. "So it’s like dang, now I wanna go!"
That’s exactly the effect MPS leaders hope the FAFSA requirement will have. But just how many students and families can be convinced to fill out the paperwork remains to be seen.
Editor's note: MPS is a financial contributor to WUWM.
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