Increasing the Accessibility of College to Minnesota Students through Scholarships

Note: I wrote this article in the summer of 2013 as part of an internship with ThreeSixty Journalism. As a part of the story, I had the opportunity to interview NFL legend and retired jurist, Alan Page.

College debt is a daunting concern for students and families across the nation, as the average amount of debt for students who graduated in 2011 was nearly $27,000, according to the non-profit American Student Assistance.

In an effort to ease the financial burden, two prominent Twin Cities men established charitable foundations two decades ago. These men are Alan Page, the former Hall of Famer defensive tackle for the Minnesota Vikings and current associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court and the late Winston Wallin, who was the CEO of Pillsbury and Medtronic.

Page and his wife, Diane, founded the Page Education Foundation 25 years ago following Page’s 1988 induction into the National Football League Hall of Fame. Wanting to capitalize on his “15 minutes,” the couple dove into the mission of “creating heroes.”

Each year the foundation awards 500 renewable grants between $1000 and $2500 to students of color, attending either two- or four-year Minnesotan institutions, who show financial need. The grants are renewable as long as the recipient is enrolled full-time in a post-secondary institution.

But for Page, the money isn’t where the story ends. Unique to the organization is the Service-to-Children aspect — a required 50 hours of academic mentorship to students in kindergarten through 8th grade.

“While the grants are important, what’s most important is having young people in college working with and talking to and spending time with young children,” Page said while sitting in the conference room at Minnesota Judicial center, sharply dressed in a dark suit and green bow tie. “That’s where the change is going to come.”

An accomplished and revered athlete, Page was alarmed to see children idolizing famous athletes and entertainers. He wants to do his part in creating the accessible heroes down the street.

“Everybody has somebody in their neighborhood who’s going off to college and has somebody who looks like them, who maybe has some shared experience, who can come back to their community and talk about the importance of education. And not just talk about it, but show by example. Thats what we’re trying to create.”

Hashim Yonis, 26, a scholar whom Page refers to as “one of the stars” of the foundation “takes the volunteering piece very, very seriously”.

Originally from Somalia, he spent part of his childhood in temporary refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia, seeking escape from the civil war and anarchy of Somalia. He immigrated to the United States and settled in Minnesota with his parents thirteen years ago.

A 2006 graduate of Edison High School in Minneapolis, he received his undergraduate degree from St. Olaf College and is currently working on his Ph.D at the University of Minnesota. While studying at St. Olaf, he volunteered with the student organization Reach Our Goals (ROG), a program which tutors young students of color who have just moved to the United States.

“I was once in their shoes, but they are getting the best help When I was a kid, I had to go to the library and wait in a line to be helped, and it might not have even been high quality help,” Yonis said. He originally hoped to major in political science but, inspired by his tutoring, switched to education and hopes to become a professor or a high school principal.

“Education is powerful. It offers you more opportunities to be successful in the future. When you learn, you grow, and you expand your horizons,” he said. “I see education as a powerful tool — the only tool — to close the achievement gap. So, through (it) you can make a huge change. You can change your society.”

Wallin Education Partners works with high-performing, low-income students. Annually, it awards 120–150 renewable scholarships of $4000 to graduates of one of their 27 partner high schools. The students must attend a four-year school in either Minnesota, a bordering state, or a historically black college.

“In many other organizations, the money is the end of the relationship, which isn’t necessarily bad, but here it is the beginning of our relationship,” said Susan King, executive director of Wallin Education Partners, speaking of the counseling given to students entering college.

After earning the scholarship, each student is assigned an advisor who tailors counseling to each student’s needs to help them navigate college effectively, such as planning coursework and learning how to ask questions in class.

DeVon Hunter-Schlichting, 22, a graduate of Coon Rapids High School, said her college experience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was made easier because of the support, both from the scholarship and her Wallin advisor.

“Throughout high school, I had been a straight-A student, but when I got my first D in my freshman year, my advisor really helped me out and helped me devise an academic plan on what to retake, gave me possible major switches, helped me make my class schedule, and helped me get a tutor,” biology major Hunter-Schlichting said.

Because of family issues and stress, she considered dropping out of college, but her advisor persuaded her against that decision. She will graduate this year, and plans on taking the next year off to save money for getting her master’s degree in biochemistry. Then, she hopes to go to law school and become a patent and intellectual property lawyer.

The goal of Wallin Education Partners’ guidance is to increase graduation rates and afterward gain “a return on our investment.”

Wallin, a World War II veteran, received a debt-free education because of the G.I. Bill, which paid for the college expenses for veterans, among other benefits.

“The G.I. Bill allowed him to get a college education, and he wanted that to happen for others,” King said. So, 22 years ago, he co-founded a scholarship program with his wife at Minneapolis South High School.

“And then it grew organically from there,” King said. Wallin Education Partners originally raised scholarship money from within the family, but after providing $35 million to over 3000 Minnesota students, it has now expanded to partner with other notable companies and families such as the Medtronic and 3M foundations.

King is proud of the six-year graduation rate of 89 percent of Wallin alumni, nearly 30 percent higher than the rate of all Minnesotans. She sees this is a testament to the success of their program.

“We hope that our alums, after college, will go out and see what they’re interested in and get involved in their communities and become leaders,” she said. “That’s how the cycle will continue.”

Justice Page agrees. He thinks that many of the society’s problems, such as poverty, crime, and racism, stem from failing to realize the importance of education.

“It seemed to us [Page and his wife] that one of the problems we face is that young children don’t recognize the importance of being educated and they don’t have somebody who helps them, motivates them, and assists them. And we thought we could provide that with the foundation,” he said.

However, with a combined annual scholarship budget of around $3 million, these two organizations cannot reach as many students as they would like.

“We’ll just try to figure out how to raise more money and keep doing what we’re doing. Whether or not we have that additional money, we wouldn’t be doing anything differently.” Page said. “People are influenced by other people and using education as a tool to increase individual opportunity while helping other people seems to me to be a natural thing to do.”