Low-income students find equal education comes with high price

Ever since she was in fifth grade, Lyah Holmes has wanted to be a doctor. But as she worked toward her diploma at Milwaukee's Rufus King High School, she began to worry.\n"I knew I couldn't afford the college tuition," Holmes said.\nHolmes ultimately chose Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee because, despite the higher tuition of a private college, it gave her the best package of grants and loans, along with a work-study position. Even that, however, fell well short of covering her costs.\nNow a sophomore, Holmes works eight hours a week on campus and another 21 hours a week off campus at a local bank. She's had to scale back her class load to keep up. She also could take out more loans in order to cut back on work, but that would saddle her with as much as $20,000 of debt by graduation with years of medical school education yet to finance.\nUnlike some students' families, Holmes' family can't afford any help.\n"Honestly, I'm overwhelmed," Holmes said.\nIn Wisconsin and across America, stories like Holmes' are increasingly common.\nFifty years after the Supreme Court ruled black Americans must receive an equal chance at a quality education, a college degree has become the ticket to the middle class. But it is a ticket that poor families -- a high percentage of them minorities -- often can't afford.\n"We're increasingly becoming a class-based society where if you're rich and white, you're able to go to a four-year college, but if you're poor or a student of color, maybe we'll provide a community college for you," said Tom Mortenson, senior scholar at the Pell Institute in Washington, D.C.\nActually, even a community college is unaffordable for many. \n"Cost is an issue here," said Tony Baez, provost at Milwaukee Area Technical College, which often is the last best hope for minority students seeking a post-secondary education. Though it might cost as little as $1,100 a semester for full-time tuition -- modest by post-secondary standards -- many students do not even try to enroll or enroll and then drop out. \n"The overwhelming reason was they ran out of money," MATC spokesman Jim Gribble said.\nAt Wisconsin's flagship college, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the number of students who receive Pell Grants, which go to low-income students, has been declining for more than a decade. Mortenson, who recently completed a study ranking universities on how well they provide access to all classes of students, gave UW-Madison a grade of F.\nEven Toby Marcovich, president of the UW Board of Regents, concedes the problem at UW-Madison. "We are not doing a good job of admitting lower- and middle-income students," he said. As for UW-Madison's record on enrolling black students, Marcovich said, "we have a long ways to go."\nThe result has been that some black students -- arguably some of the best -- going to colleges out of state where they might be offered more financial aid or find the racial climate more comfortable. A 2001 study done by Mortenson found Wisconsin had a net outflow of 1,452 Pell Grant recipients, meaning many more low-income and minority college students left the state than came. The figure is higher than in 38 other states.\nGerard Randall, a UW regent, said this could contribute to the problem Milwaukee has had building a black middle class. \n"We know that at least 50 percent of (Wisconsin) students who go to colleges in other states don't come back," he noted.\nExperts stress it is difficult to isolate one reason as the sole cause of a student failing to enroll in or complete college. But many believe a lack of financial aid is one of the most important contributing factors.