How choosing a college exposes a family
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By BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star
All the names coming out of Les Monroe’s office ring a familiar tune.
Pell. FAFSA. Stafford. Oh yeah, you remember your college pal Stafford.
“And there’s Val,” Monroe says.
Wait. Val? Who the heck is Val?
Monroe turns his chair. He points at a giant yellow post-it note.
“VAL.” That’s all it says.
Interesting story about Val. Then again, a guy like Monroe sees hundreds of interesting stories in his office.
A hundred stories is just a typical April for the director of college planning at the EducationQuest Foundation, on 13th and O streets.
He sees happy people, confused people, red-faced people, frazzled people.
“Daily,” Monroe says of how often the frazzled people visit. “Daily.”
Needing to disclose financial information for a FAFSA form, a mother once informed Monroe, with her teenager in the room, that she was divorcing her husband.
It was news to the teenager.
“I hear things I have no business hearing,” Monroe says.
And sometimes he gets a visit to his office from someone like Val.
Granted, Val showed up late. But that’s what makes his story so interesting.
“Val is a student. His mom works at a packing plant...” Monroe’s story begins.
Val lives out of town, within an hour of Lincoln.
Val recently had an appointment with Monroe to fill out his FAFSA form, which would tell him if he was in line for any federal student aid.
Val didn’t show up, which is obviously bad for several reasons, but worse in this case because appointments with Monroe from February to April do not come easily. One must practically be booked four weeks in advance.
Val did finally come to EducationQuest one day with his mother, but Monroe was full with meetings by then.
So the high school senior began to fill out his FAFSA with his mother at a computer outside his office.
As the day started to slip away, Monroe noticed the son and mother struggling.
He assumed by the expression on the mom’s face that she was angry that they couldn’t see Monroe.
“What I quickly learned was she wasn’t fluent in English,” Monroe says. “That look wasn’t anger. That look was fear in the process.”
He walked over and told Val: “It’s very important that your mother understands this entire process, so you’re going to translate and I’m going to talk slow. OK?”
Mother’s face lit up.
“The anxiety is gone, the fear is gone when people understand someone is there to help,” Monroe says.
Pretty worthwhile trip for Val. He found out he’s eligible for a federal Pell Grant, which means he won’t have to pay back the money he gets.
Emotion grabbed both mother and son when that news came.
Val’s now planning to attend Southeast Community College.
Monroe just wishes more people coming from backgrounds like Val’s realized: “College is not only affordable. College is free.”
The message can be more difficult to deliver when Monroe meets with a middle-class family that just misses the cut in getting federal aid.
Worst hit in the current process are families that make too much to gain a Pell Grant but make little enough that parents feel they can’t write a check for college.
“We find more and more parents unwilling to pay for their child’s education because of concerns for their own future,” Monroe says.
Tension in finances also comes into play when the student wants to go to a more expensive college out of state.
Recently, Monroe got a call from a dad urging him to convince his daughter to pick an in-state school.
“I’m not going to do that,” Monroe says. “My goal is that she chooses a college and sticks.”
Monroe is a fact-giver, though he will let one opinion seep into this story: Nebraskans are “extremely lucky” to live in a state with such reasonable college expenses.
He is quite used to hearing from students early in their senior year who tell him they’re going to Arizona, California, New York — anywhere that’s a three-hour plane flight from Nebraska.
“When it comes down to it, they change their minds,” Monroe says. “It’s the glory of ‘I’m grown up. I’m going to do it big. I’m getting away from here.’ That glamour dies down after a bit.”
The disappointing part of Monroe’s job is that he doesn’t always hear back from the students he helps.
They go to college. He goes back to the office.
After all, come September, another worried flock will come in waving FAFSA forms.
Fear not. He’s seen it all.
Reach Brian Christopherson at 473-7438 or bchristopherson@journalstar.com.
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