Sh’Tejah Ward needed to come up with $8,651 to pay the rest of her fall semester bill for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to return in the spring. Looking for answers, she succinctly summed up her situation to an adviser: “I’m lost.”

In Wisconsin, and many other states, need-based institutional aid is largely an every-university-for-itself affair. When a state doesn’t level the playing field, its flagship—generally the state’s most elite public university, with far more resources at its disposal—can much more effectively keep costs down than less-selective universities can. And that can have severe consequences for students who go elsewhere, including those who need help the most.

On March 31, 2015, fourth-generation coal miner Shawn Rigney found himself at a crossroads.

For 11 years, Rigney had worked for a local surface mining company—as a loader, dozer operator, and eventually as a safety director. When the company went bankrupt, layoffs soon followed.  

Unsure of where to turn, Rigney decided to enroll in classes on the Harlan campus of Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College. Today, the former coal miner has new skills and a new career as a clinical instructor at the school.