Star Tribune
Minnesota promised foster kids free college, but doesn’t have enough money
Ace Goff doesn’t know if she’ll be able to go to college next year.
She’s been relying on a state grant that helps former foster children pay their tuition and living costs — and she just found out the program is facing a $5 million shortfall.
Livid doesn’t begin to describe how she’s feeling.
“You shouldn’t have promised us anything if you guys weren’t 100% sure,” she said.
Lawmakers celebrated the creation of the Fostering Independence Grant Program (FIG) three years ago, holding it up as a rare pandemic-era win that could help hundreds of the state’s most vulnerable young residents improve their lives while reducing the long-term demand for social services.
“When they came forward and made their pitch, it just made sense to me,” said Sen. Jason Rarick, R-Pine City, who sponsored the legislation that created the program. “When you took a step back and you realized what hurdles that all foster kids have to go through to make it to a postsecondary school, this was definitely something that needed to get done to assist them.”
Between 12,000 and 16,500 Minnesota children experience some form of out-of-home or foster care each year. Some children were removed from their homes after officials found evidence of abuse or neglect. Others wound up there as part of agreements designed to help them access specialized treatment for disabilities or mental health concerns.
Only about half the nation’s foster children graduate from high school and an even smaller portion — less than 10% — obtain a college degree, according to data from the National Foster Youth Institute.
State leaders said they tried hard to accurately predict the costs of the program, which receives about $4 million per year. Leaders in the state’s Office of Higher Education predicted about 550 people would qualify for the new grants, based on information students had reported on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the document used to determine what assistance students should receive.
Those estimates initially held up, with 492 people receiving the grants in the first year. Then, demand for the program nearly doubled. Inflation drove up housing costs. For the first time in 14 years, enrollment at Minnesota colleges grew, squeezing other state aid programs and limiting officials’ ability to shift money toward the foster grant program.
“It was a hard program to project out,” said Adam Johnson, a state financial aid program administrator with the Office of Higher Education.
If current trends continue, the office estimates it will need an additional $5 million to meet the needs of 896 former foster children next school year.
Uncertainty stresses students
In legislative hearings, leaders with the Office of Higher Education have tried to strike a balance, calling the increased interest a sign of the new program’s rapid success while driving home to lawmakers what might happen if they don’t provide extra money.
“If the number of FIG recipients stays flat and additional funding is not available, we expect that 40% of students would be placed on a waitlist,” State Grant/State Financial Aid Manager Meghan Flores told lawmakers in a hearing earlier this month. “This is not something that we would ever want to happen.”
Even knowing that’s a possibility sent students’ stress levels rising.
Travis Matthews, student government president at Hamline University, knows what it’s like to attend school with and without the grant. Without it, he worried about how he’d pay for housing and food. With it, he was able to take an internship and focus more on his studies. “You’re moving past survivability to thriving,” he said.
Matthews considers himself lucky. He’ll graduate this year. But he doesn’t want other students to need to rely on luck.
“That is pennies at the Capitol,” he said of the additional request. “There is no reason why we can’t fund this.”
Minnesota budgets on a two-year cycle and officials expect to spend about $70.5 billion this biennium. Lawmakers are scrambling to figure out how to respond to the FIG shortfall, noting this isn’t a normal budgeting year. Gov. Tim Walz’s office says he’s “open to further conversations with the legislature about ensuring it meets students’ needs.”
Rarick said they’re looking at whether some recipients might qualify for housing assistance through a different program. If the state starts a waitlist, it will likely prioritize funding for students already in school, so their studies aren’t disrupted as much. But Rarick also hopes they’ll find a solution that can at least get students through next school year and buy time to work on a longer-term solution.
“No matter what, we have to figure this out this year, so that we uphold our promise,” he said. “I don’t see any other way.”
Returning to survival mode
Meanwhile, the Office of Higher Education is encouraging students to file their financial aid forms, noting that many former foster children are eligible for a wide variety of other programs that could also cut down their college costs.
“This isn’t the only scholarship that’s available to them, and we want to make sure they’re able to access it,” said Keith Hovis, a spokesperson for the office.
Students are starting to go back into survival mode.
The grant allowed Nia Dyer, a junior at Minnesota State University Moorhead, to move into a safer living space. She dreads the thought of having to wonder whether she should buy 60 packets of ramen noodles to feed her for a month, because it’s the option that fits her budget.
Dyer wants to finish the bachelor’s degree she needs to land a job in advocacy work.
“Knowing that it’s in trouble and that it might go underfunded is terrifying, because I am one more year away from achieving my dream,” she said.
Goff isn’t ready to give up. She’s in her third year at Metropolitan State University. Her ability to support her child and her dream of one day running homes that help foster youth are both hanging in the balance. So she’s making trips to the Capitol to tell lawmakers how this uncertainty is stressing her.
“This hit deep,” she said. “You’re playing with people’s lives.”
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and her daughter were among the throngs Friday as President Joe Biden delivered the apology that many Indigenous Americans thought would never come.
“I think he really said the things that people have been waiting to hear for generations, acknowledged just the horror and trauma of literally having our children stolen from our communities,” said Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. “It’s a powerful first step towards healing.”
Hundreds of boarding schools operated in the 19th and 20th centuries, separating Indigenous children from their families and forcing them to assimilate to European ways. Many children were abused, and at least 973 died, according to a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Other Minnesotans reacted similarly to Flanagan, saying they welcomed the apology but that additional action is needed to help Indigenous people move forward.
Anton Treuer, a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, wrote in a newsletter that the apology was “a welcome first step on the journey to healing.”
“There is no way to truly right historical injustices for the children buried at Carlisle, Haskell, and other schools, but these words set a new tone for the country and will help heal the anguish so many Natives have carried for so long,” Treuer wrote. “It gives me hope that we can come together to reconcile and heal our troubled nation.”
Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, the first Indigenous woman to serve in the state Senate, called Biden’s apology encouraging.
“This recognition of past wrongdoings is an important step towards healing relationships between the United States and the sovereign nations affected by these past systems,” Kunesh said in a statement. “This dark period of American history must be remembered and taught.”
“I have done everything in my power to remedy this situation, and it continues to get more and more violent by the day,” Moturi wrote. “There have been numerous times when I’ve seen Sawchak outside and contacted law enforcement, and there was no response. I am not confident in the pursuit of Sawchak given that Sawchak attacked me, MPD officers had John detained, and despite an HRO and multiple warrants — they still let him go.”
On Friday, five City Council members sent a letter to Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara expressing their “utter horror at MPD’s failure to protect a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent and amply reported threat posed by his neighbor.”
Council Members Andrea Jenkins, Elliott Payne, Aisha Chughtai, Jason Chavez and Robin Wonsley went on to allege that police had failed to submit reports to the County Attorney’s Office despite threats being made with weapons, and at times while Sawchak screamed racial slurs. Sawchak is white and Moturi is Black.
The council members also contend in their letter that the MPD told the County Attorney’s Office that police did not intend to execute the warrant for “reasons of officer safety.”
At a Friday afternoon news conference at MPD’s Fifth Precinct, O’Hara said police had been working to arrest Sawchak since at least April, but “no Minneapolis police officers have had in-person contact with that suspect since the victim in this case has been calling us.” The chief pointed out that Sawchak is mentally ill, has guns and refuses to cooperate “in the dozens of times that police officers have responded to the residence.”
O’Hara put aside the option to carry out “a high-risk warrant based on these factors [and] the likelihood of an armed, violent confrontation where we may have to use deadly force with the suspect.” The preference, he said, was to arrest Sawchak outside his home, but “in this case, this suspect is a recluse and does not come out of the house.”
ROCHESTER – The Federal Transit Administration has green-lighted an $85 million grant supporting the development of the city’s planned Link Bus Rapid Transit system.
The FTA formally announced the grant on Friday during a ceremonial check presentation outside of the Mayo Civic Center, one of the seven stops planned for the bus line. The federal grant will cover about 60% of the project’s estimated $143.4 million price tag, with the remaining funds coming from Destination Medical Center, the largest public-private development project in state history.
Set to go live in 2026, the 2.8-mile Link system will connect downtown Rochester, including Mayo Clinic’s campuses, with a proposed “transit village” that will include parking, hundreds of housing units and a public plaza. The bus line will be the first of its kind outside the Twin Cities — with service running every five minutes during peak hours.
“That means you may not even need to look at a schedule,” said Veronica Vanterpool, deputy administrator for the FTA. “You can just show up at your transit stop and expect the next bus to come in a short time. That is a game changer and a life-transformational experience in transit for those people who are using it and relying on it.”
The planned Second Street corridor is already one of the busiest roads in Rochester, carrying more than 21,800 vehicles a day, and city planners have talked for years about ways to reduce traffic congestion in the city’s downtown. Local officials estimate that the transit line, which will rely on a fleet of all-electric buses, will handle 11,000 riders on its first day of operation and save eight city blocks of parking.
Speaking to a crowd of about 100 people gathered on Friday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the project shows Rochester is thinking strategically about how it handles growth.
“If you just plan the business expansion, and you don’t have the workforce, you don’t have the child care, the housing or the transit, it’s not going to work very well as a lot of communities across the nation have found,” Klobuchar said.
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