Meet 3 Milwaukee grads who overcame odds
When Jessica Antonio was a sophomore at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, she played on the volleyball team. Practices would end about 6:30 p.m. Both of her parents worked at that hour, so she would walk home, about a 45-minute hike.
That cut into her time for homework, for sleeping, for other things. And especially on wintry days, it was a challenge. But quitting volleyball was not an option for her.
The walk turned into a formative experience.
“Walking under the cold, windy afternoons allowed me to self-reflect and made me realize so many things about myself and what defined me,” she wrote in an essay a couple of years later. “I learned that when I am passionate about a subject, the hurdles of mastering it do not bother me.”
Walking home was “one of those defining moments that helped me discover myself as a person. … The walk stood as a symbol of my journey so far in life and what I was capable of doing.”
Antonio is graduating high school now. The next hurdle she intends to master: Succeeding at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
She has picked up an important ally as she starts this part of the walk of her life. All-In Milwaukee is an organization in its first year of selecting promising low-income Milwaukee high school graduates and offering them both tangible and intangible help in their college years. Tangible means up to $18,000 over four years. Intangible means mentoring, counseling and general encouragement throughout college from All-In staff.
The initiative is modeled after a program in Minneapolis that has grown to involve about 1,000 students who are graduating college at a rate over 90%, far above the average for low-income students, and who generally are graduating college with little or no debt, thanks to all the sources of financial help they get.
All-In Milwaukee began last fall with a goal of raising enough funds to support 25 students who will begin college this fall. It did better than that — it has selected and is ready to help 40. It’s a good start and its leaders are aiming to do more.
There are other good efforts to help Milwaukee area students make it to and through college. But the need is great. All-in Milwaukee leaders cite federal data that show Milwaukee has the lowest percentage of bachelor’s degrees among African Americans (12.7%) of any American large metropolitan area. For Latinos, the figure is 13.6%.
I offer praise to all who are helping to increase Milwaukee’s population of college graduates. That includes higher education institutions themselves, foundations and businesses and organization with scholarship funds, and all those who donate or who offer mentoring or other support to students. Every bit of help is important.
With high school graduations underway now, I especially offer praise to graduates and even more so, those who have overcome big hurdles to get to commencement and to set out for college.
From homelessness to UW-Madison
Consider Isaac Wells. He has dealt with challenges his whole life — no father in his life, a mother with mental illness, homelessness, foster placements and more. He lives in a group home now. This school year, he traveled by bus well over an hour each way from the north side to Reagan High School on the far south side.
He has become a spotlighted Milwaukee Public Schools graduate this spring. He was designated as a prestigious national Presidential Scholar and MPS released a video saluting him on Thursday. And he has been selected to receive All-In Milwaukee’s boost as a college student.
What have been the keys to keeping him on a path to success? “A steadfast mindset, a determination,” he told me. “I always felt I needed to do better.” He called academic success “my best way out” of poverty. He will attend UW-Madison in the fall, with the goal of a career as a scientist.
DACA student with big plans
Or consider Justin Perez, who is graduating from Carmen High School of Science and Technology South Campus. He’s also an All-In student. Among other hurdles in his life, his parents brought him from Mexico to the United States when he was 5 months old and he is allowed to stay in the U.S. now as part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program, which President Donald Trump has attempted to end.
Perez wrote in his application to AllIn Milwaukee, “I’ve come to the realization that the challenges I am faced with only motivate me to keep moving forward. Whether it’s financial barriers, a citizenship requirement, or even educational disadvantages, I am always motivated to overcome those obstacles. I want to prove that I am able to do anything that I set my mind to.”
Perez will work on proving that further as a student at Marquette University, which offered him a full-tuition scholarship. The All-In Milwaukee money will go toward other expenses, such as room and board.
Money is not the only reason that low-income students and students from families where there has not been prior success in college have such low rates of success nationwide. There are hurdles due to life circumstances, difficulty fitting into unfamiliar cultures and any number of other factors.
That’s where the intangible help being offered these students can be so valuable. Having someone who is a steady support, someone you can turn to when times are tough, someone who will prod you and urge you on can be valuable.
Students such as Antonio, Wells and Perez can provide motivation and inspiration to a city that needs such things. The state of so many children and so many schools in the city can easily lead to feeling like we’re all taking long walks in wintry weather.
So take a moment to be inspired by what Jessica Antonio learned from such walks: “Walking in the winter taught me to keep walking.”
Alan J. Borsuk is senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette Law School. Reach him at alan.borsuk@marquette.edu.