Welcome to Mile Markers, a twice-a-month newsletter about rural higher education.
I just spent this week meeting many of my colleagues for the first time in person, and let me tell you, it was so wonderful to break out of the remote work life for a bit!
In this edition, I’m really excited to share a story featuring some brilliant students from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I’ve been working on interviewing a variety of students (undergraduates, graduates, alum) for an upcoming project that aims to highlight their different paths to and through college – but through the students’ voices. If you know students I should be talking to or someone I should ask for recommendations, please send me an email and let me know. I’d love to incorporate their stories.
More than a scholarship program
One student is studying astrophysics after being awestruck at a planetarium as a little girl. Another has plans to pursue medical school after watching his father treat so many neighbors in his rural community. A third was inspired to pursue a career in mental health, hoping to be a “light” for others facing difficult times. And yet another dreams of working in the music industry, hopefully equipped with a law degree to navigate music contracts and record labels.
Each of these University of Michigan students have had varying paths through college, but they all have one thing in common: They grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
While their experiences ranged from snowy towns on the Canadian border to homes dropped in what one student described as the “middle of the woods,” a common story emerged as I talked to them about their hometowns in the U.P.
“It was really tight knit,” said Sophia Marier, who grew up in Three Lakes, Michigan, where the 2020 census counted 167 people. “In one way or the other, everybody was trying to help each other because everybody knew each other and their goals.”
When Marier moved to the University of Michigan, where more than 35,000 undergraduates are enrolled, that sense of neighbors-looking-out-for-neighbors wasn’t immediately present. That is, until she plugged into one particular program.
“That’s where U.P. Scholars really bridged that gap,” she said.
U.P. Scholars is a scholarship program for University of Michigan students coming from the Upper Peninsula. Undergraduate students receive financial aid for four years, as well as a variety of other academic and social support ranging from one-on-one coaching, tutoring, networking opportunities and other community-building activities.
Students like Alex Mamonov described this feeling of always having someone in their corner when talking about U.P. Scholars and the program’s manager Megan Roberts.
“I think for a lot of students from the U.P., from rural communities, there’s a big stigma for asking for help,” Mamonov said. “Sometimes I think there’s a big emphasis on being your own person, being independent, not wanting to pursue extra help, and I think that the program really shows that it’s okay to do that. We have all these resources for you. You just have to say ‘yes’ or accept the opportunity, show up, and you know that help is there for you.”
Mamonov said U.P. Scholars in particular made college feel possible. When the now senior was planning for college, he had just unexpectedly lost his father. Mamonov described him as his inspiration, an OB-GYN doctor dedicated to serving underserved communities. The sudden loss also led his mother to return to school to become a nurse. With some financial uncertainty, Mamonov said he was worried about how he’d pay for college.
“Then, I heard about the U.P. Scholars program. That felt like just a first bit of hope after all this difficulty, and I saw what it could offer from a scholarship standpoint, from a support standpoint, and I realized this is something I wanted to pursue and that it could really change my life.”
Emi Reith, who is studying physics and astrophysics with a minor in Bosnian language and culture, said she saw how U.P. Scholars grew with her. When she was starting her freshman year, the program provided her the community and social network she needed. Now in her fourth year, she feels empowered by the group to make a difference for future students.
“I attribute the student that I am today to the U.P. Scholars program and to Megan,” Reith said. “I struggled when I came here, and I was so homesick, and she found a way to make U.P. Scholars a home away from home, like that tight knit community that I was so craving.”
Other students talked about the sense of relief that they didn’t have to figure things out on their own anymore. All four students interviewed said they had to do a lot of their own sleuthing online to figure out the college admissions process and find resources like U.P. Scholars.
Aubrey Agar, a sophomore who is studying to become a psychiatric physician’s assistant, knew she wanted to work in psychiatry after navigating some of her own mental health challenges. But she said an adviser early on discouraged her from pursuing the full medical degree because of the difficult course load.
It was conversations with Roberts, the U.P. Scholars program manager, that helped her identify a path forward. Still, she said she was frustrated by assumptions others made about her abilities.
“Just because we’re from somewhere small with not a lot of resources doesn’t mean we don’t have the capacity to figure it out,” she said. “If you want to work hard, you’re going to figure out a way to make it work and you’re going to work hard. I feel like maybe we want it even more.”
Agar wasn’t alone in pointing out stigmas she believed existed about who belonged in college or who could succeed. Marier, for example, said the community from U.P. Scholars helped her realize that she belonged in spaces like a professional pre-law fraternity.
“It didn’t feel like I was allowed to take advantage of these resources because I didn’t know where they were or how they worked,” she said, explaining how that shifted for her with the support of U.P. Scholars.
Now, these students said they want to make sure that future rural students realize their potential, too.
The students shared how they hosted events where they invited high school counselors from the Upper Peninsula to visit campus. Some of the students have also been working on a “Yooper’s Guide to the University of Michigan” for prospective students who live in the U.P.
As others have pointed out in a conversation on LinkedIn this past week, rural students often have smart ideas on how to address some of the challenges to rural college access. These students prove that.
They said they want to see stronger relationships between their rural high schools and universities like Michigan. This means inviting college students and graduates to return to their high schools and talk about opportunities post-graduation. Or, it could look like more colleges and universities showing up in their rural hometowns.
Marier, who has stayed in touch with her high school counselor and often connects with junior and senior students to talk about colleges and careers, said she would love to see websites that are easier to navigate and clearer information about admissions and financial aid, including deadlines and guidance on FAFSA.
Reith, who attended Kingsford High School along the northern Wisconsin border, said she noticed how her region seemed to focus on engineering or STEM careers, but she would have loved to hear from other students in her community and the different career paths they could follow.
Ultimately, each student said the same thing in different ways: They want other rural students to know that they are capable.
“I just wish that people looked at students coming from rural areas and didn’t just discount them right away,” Reith said. “We all are here for a reason at Michigan, and it’s not that one person is more capable than the other. It’s that we’re all capable in our own ways, and that being a rural student has a lot of value in a different way than being from an urban area.”
What I’m reading and attending
Have you heard of the issue of “ghost students?” Open Campus reporters Cleo Krejci in Minnesota and Amy Morona in Ohio both dug into this financial aid fraud issue recently. You can read Cleo’s reporting here, and Amy’s here.
These stories had me thinking about how the extra investment to fund and staff this needed fraud detection is affecting rural community colleges.
Is this something you’re seeing on your campuses or in your communities? Let me know here, or send me an email.
Another newsletter I’ve enjoyed is Sam Pressler’s Connective Tissue, and his interview with Ash Hanson of the Department of Public Transformation was a really thought-provoking read and had me thinking about what it looks like to have a deep and meaningful relationship with the place you invest in, no matter how rooted you feel there.
A shameless plug: Ash is one of the speakers at this year’s Radically Rural Summit, which takes place in just a few weeks. I would love to see some of you there! When you register, make sure to download the Whova app to see meetups and chat with other attendees/speakers.
I’ll be back with another Mile Markers edition in a couple weeks, and in the meantime, feel free to share Mile Markers with anyone else who might be interested, or subscribe here if you were forwarded this email.
Thanks for reading and loving rural.
Talk soon,
Emily
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