Helen Faith is a financial aid director at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. This is the time of year when she focuses on a familiar agenda: hosting informational sessions on financial aid applications for families, reviewing prospective students’ forms, and generally revving up her office’s well-oiled machinery to start crunching numbers and spitting out student aid packages.

But with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) launch delayed by at least two months, Faith’s fall calendar is up in the air. And she’s not the only one.

The lack of mental health services at schools and colleges is a national issue. Students are enduring a mental health crisis so severe that the U.S. surgeon general issued an advisory in 2021, noting that “the challenges today’s generation of young people face are unprecedented and uniquely hard to navigate.”

That sentiment hits home for Meaghan Birnie.

With recent decisions on race-conscious admissions and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, plus on-going attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at colleges and universities, many underrepresented students are left wondering: Now what? Will I have the opportunity to go to college?

Growing up Latina, low-income, and undocumented, Maribel Hernández Rivera had the same questions. In this essay, she shares her story about believing in one's dreams—and the power of education to make them happen.