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If you've been through the process of trying to find money for a college student and filling out the Fafsa form, you know how difficult it can be for some families, the paperwork combined with the cost create major barriers to college attendance.

That's why a new program guaranteeing free tuition for low income students at public colleges and universities is starting in 2026.

Tonight, advocates for the Washington Guarantee Program are here to explain how it all works.

And our Steve Kiggins with the story of making college a more realistic goal for thousands.

The Washington Tuition guarantee is the discussion next on northwest.

Now.

You.

Washington already has a pretty good program for low income students to attend college.

The Washington College grant is helping tens of thousands of young Washingtonians go to school.

But determining eligibility is a problem.

The Fafsa form and the process is tough, and many students don't know their status until it's too late to enroll with confidence, or they find out they got bogged down in the process somewhere.

That friction in the system causes students who could otherwise go to college, not to.

So enter the new Washington Guarantee program.

That does a couple of things.

It casts a wider net to capture eligible students by using already existing food stamp, and maybe soon free lunch data, and it let students know when they're sophomores in high school that, yes, they have a pathway to college as northwest.

Now Steve King tells us, advocates hope that supplementing the Fafsa process using already established criteria to determine income eligible and showing students the pathway early, may greatly increase college participation and college enrollment in the low income population.

Washington's economy is expected to grow nearly five times the national rate by 2032.

By then, there could be 1.5 million jobs up for grabs.

Washington roundtable says nearly three quarters of those jobs will require some kind of post-secondary education, but projections suggest Washingtonians will be ready to fill less than half of them with this bill.

We can make it so students don't feel like they're leaping over a canyon.

Guaranteeing admissions for students with a three GPA tells them that they are wanted, and that they can choose their future.

The Washington State Legislature considers House Bill 1557 this session.

The bill aims to expand reach of the Washington Guaranteed Access Program, ensuring students across the state who meet simple criteria are guaranteed a seat at one of Washington's six public universities.

Is an effort, really to to address the belief gap.

There are students who are sitting in our high schools right now who have, you know, reasonably good GPAs, who could go to college.

They just don't believe that college is for them.

Washington Roundtable supports the bill and campaigns public and private interests towards encouraging 70% of Washington's youth to certification, apprenticeship or undergraduate degrees by the year 2030.

Community and technical colleges play a role in filling the gap, offering training and certification, plus many now offer bachelor's programs.

Besides enrolling, figuring out how to pay for college remains a barrier for many.

We realize to us that there are a lot of students who obviously are interested in pursuing higher education, and we didn't want affordability to be a barrier.

And so in 2019, the legislature made the Washington College grant an entitlement for public school students with families meeting certain criteria.

College could be free through the Washington College grant.

House Bill 1557 seeks to expand access to higher learning to as many as possible to help ensure Washingtonians participate in an economy predicted to grow as early as even in grade ten.

We can tell a student that, hey, your tuition and fees are covered, and so that will change students perception and behavior.

In Seattle, Steve, chicken's northwest now.

Joining us now are Michael Miotti who is the executive director of the Washington Student Achievement Council, and Victor Zamora, executive director of the Low Income college access advocacy group Minds Matter.

Seattle.

Michael and Victor, thanks so much for coming to northwest.

Now to have what I think is a very important conversation about our continuing effort to get more and more of the state's kids and young adults into college, and to prepare them for the working world and to help with our workforce issues.

And a lot of the things we talk about here on northwest now all the time.

Michael, I want to start with you and what I, I if you could kind of do a chalk talk for me, I wish I had a whiteboard for you, but tie together the Washington college grant, the college bound scholarship.

Those are widely viewed as being good tools.

And then the new tuition guarantee help me help integrate those things into my head, if you would.

Right.

Well, Washington, Washington College grant is Washington State's story.

I call it the workhorse financial aid grant program.

It has been called the most, it is the most generous one of state programs in the country.

Also very powerful in creating opportunity for Washington residents.

It's open to adults.

It's open to people coming right out of high school, college bound scholarship is basically a pathway beginning in seventh and eighth grade.

It doesn't these days give you any more money.

It used to years ago.

There be a little bit of a financial difference that's been closed as the Washington College grant became more generous, became an entitlement.

So it's really more sort of a way in which we engage with the states higher education agency.

So we're engaging with students starting in seventh and eighth grade, working with their schools and connecting them to this pathway has not been able to develop as much as we like, but it's there.

And then finally, the new guarantee which which is which, what we're trying to do is show how powerful Washington College affordability is for, especially for lower income families.

Earlier, you don't know if you're getting any financial at all until spring of 12th grade.

Right.

And we think that timing issue is just too late in the process.

And the guarantee would be we know families are in the federal Snap Food Assistance Program.

We know for sure they're going to pass any standards, right?

We know that in 10th grade, 10th grade is the year that you file your tax year, your Fafsa as a 12th graders based on starting in 10th grade.

So let's just tell you in 10th grade, you won't have to pay tuition if you go to a public college or university in Washington.

And that helps so much.

Talk a little bit.

You know, Michael, I have another, Victor, I have another question for you, too.

But first, I if you'd address the timing piece for me, I want to break that out a little bit.

I feel like if a kid.

And thanks for reminding me to it's not just kids are young adults.

So I want to say that as a caveat, but I tend to think of kids when I'm thinking about this topic, so my bad.

But good point.

I think it's so important that if a kid kind of has a plan and can start dreaming early and making plans early and telling his friends, yeah, I intend to go to this and I can.

Yeah, I feel like their chances of enrolling are so much higher.

Is that true or is that just my gut?

That's not based on any data I it's true.

I think that's that's the one piece that I really like about this new grant is that it's creating college awareness for students earlier.

So now as a sophomore, you can actually see yourself going to college versus kind of what Michael said of, you really don't know until you're a senior.

And so now schools can advocate for this funding for for the students to actually think about, hey, your college is going to be taken care of.

Yeah.

Sophomore year.

Now you can start thinking about your grades.

You can start thinking about what you're doing, or you think about maybe what career path you want to follow, because again, you can use it at any of the four year schools or the two year schools.

And so I think for me, it's just the for a young person to be 16 and be like, hey, I can afford to go to college.

Yeah, it's a huge thing.

Particularly if our students are coming from low income backgrounds.

Here's another example of Tom crazy.

And I think it's I think it's important to for Grandma and grandpa to buy you a UW sweater for Christmas.

I really do know.

I know that sounds crazy, but I think it's part of that ideation and kind of that dream piece.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, I would buy a central one.

Okay.

Because I went to school.

But it is.

Right.

It's, it's, it's really brings the whole family together to think about college being a reality versus that conversation of, can we afford college?

Does this does this work for community and technical colleges?

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

And even apprenticeship programs.

Right.

So so one of the problems we have is you hear the word college and people think, oh, I'm going to live in a dorm and be a psych major, right?

Yes, absolutely.

You know, but we're also talking about an apprenticeship program, a technical certificate, and could be, diesel engineer, diesel, diesel mechanics, electricians, you know, that kind of thing.

Yeah.

And I think, I think that's that's great, too, you know, the flexibility it can provide, the important point, the guarantees that are coming by using other data sets, not just Fafsa, but also the Snap and maybe free and reduced lunch, some of those data sets to help give kids an indication earlier that they're going, I want you to both answer this question.

Michael, start with you.

Are you at all worried about as sad as it is Elon Musk blowing up the data sets and making this guarantee, I mean, something you can't access because that data no longer exists?

Or is this program and do you see any jeopardy here at this point?

Well, I certainly, you know, the definition in jeopardy has been totally changed in today's world.

Who knows what could happen?

The school this is based this is sort of an intersection of snap the for for for the whole family and the school lunch program.

Right.

You know, you know, both federal government programs, right?

Core programs supported by, people, both parties for years, farmers have a great deal of interest in Snap and the school lunch program for, for obvious reasons.

Right.

You know, but who knows?

We will we will figure out a way to do this.

Let's put it that way.

We we're pretty adaptive and flexible and smart in the state of Washington.

We'll figure out how to do this.

Victor, how do you see the threat to the program if the data goes sideways, or if those or if the parameters for participation in Snap or in free and reduced lunch, those parameters changed?

Do you see jeopardy here?

I do a little bit, but I think, like Michael said, I feel like the state of Washington, particularly for supporting students who go to college, has always been ahead of the curve, and they've always found ways to be creative and find solutions that are going to work for the students and so I, I yes, I'm nervous.

Right.

But also I have confidence that like Wozzeck and the other institutions support the money.

Going out to students has always been creative and found ways to do it, like the college band scholarship that started in the seventh or eighth grade, like no one was doing something like that.

And so and they partner with other organizations to help lead that work.

And so I feel scared a little bit.

But also, I'm confident that if we're making this guarantee already, if things do change at the federal level, we're going to find a way to make it work for us here in Washington, for our Washington students, one of the things that just this is just a random insert on my part that I think about is if you take this this guarantee and this early decision on college, potentially combine it with some AP classes and things.

I mean, kids can really get a running start.

You know, they're running start programs.

And I actually think, yeah, this actually is running.

Yeah.

It it is really a running start is it not.

I mean it bolsters that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Talk a little bit about that.

I mean I think what you're really talking about well you're talking with Victor before, which is about helping develop a vision that this is what you want to do.

Right?

It's like anything in life, you know, I don't have a vision for how to go skydiving.

So don't tell me you're going to give me skydiving lessons for free.

It does.

Just not relevant to me.

Helped develop the vision.

The vision comes from symbolic things.

As human beings, we see the the, the logo, the swag.

Becoming a fan of a team, you know, basketball, whatever it is.

Yeah, you know, football, whatever.

You know, knowing about a cousin and nephew, somebody in the neighborhood, you know, but then, taking more challenging coursework in high school, running start programs, college in high school, our universities are now going to start a guaranteed admissions program based on GPA that we can combine earlier for this pathway.

All of those things help you be developed a vision and be ready for success when you get there.

And I think one of the big things, too, is remove friction.

Any anything that can be done in any system economics, buying a car.

I don't care what it is.

If you can remove friction, you're facilitating, participate in, Victor, talk a little bit about, Fafsa, if you would.

We had some discussions we did via email prior to this.

I'm always transparent with our viewers that we do a little talking.

Prior to this, my impression that was Fafsa was this giant disaster.

And that's it was hard when my kids were, you know, I remember Fafsa nights, and that was a great phrase that you shared.

Me, I was like, there are Fafsa nights.

Yes.

Yeah, you do sit there at night doing Fafsa.

And, it got blown up and then maybe reassembled a little bit.

Give me a little history on what it is and how it's working.

Well, last year they rolled out a new kind of process for the Fafsa, and I would say that did kind of get blown up.

It got delayed a lot.

And so there was a it's going to open this date and it's going to be in this day, and then it's going to open this day.

And so the process for itself, just opening was a challenge last year.

And then some of the questions and how how it was structured was a little different than the past.

So last year was a challenge for the students, at least for our students.

They were getting financial aid packages from up until May, and generally May is when you confirm.

And so there was a lot of delays this year.

I actually it opened early okay.

And the process seemed a little smoother.

And I think one of the credits that I gave is I think the Fafsa folks actually listen to people.

They listen to, organizations like and can and other nonprofits that were advocating to make this process simpler.

So they listened.

They made some changes.

Last year, the state of Washington provided a lot of grant funding to do fast nights.

Late in the spring.

It was like, hey, here's some money, some counselors or counselors or no offense.

They said, here's like, here's a $500 grant to buy food to put on a fast food night.

And so I think here in Washington, we were able to kind of push ahead further, maybe in some other states, because we had the support from the state to say, hey, we are seeing a challenge now, let's fix that.

And again, that was last year thus far.

I would say for this year, like I, our students haven't had any issues with it.

It's actually gone pretty smoothly.

My counseling team is always a little nervous when it's too smooth because you're like, oh, where's where's the good, where's the problem going to be?

Yeah.

But it's been really nice in the way that they've, they've listened to the changes that we were asking for.

They actually released it on time.

And those small pieces are huge, particularly when you're working at a school where you have 500 kids and you're trying to get all these students through the application.

You know, the fast was still is always going to be a process in a barrier, like it's always going to be something that you have to do to go to college.

You know, I think this is where, are the guaranteed tuition is going to make things a little different, particularly for Washington students, but it's always going to be a barrier.

You're always going to have to do it.

Yeah, but now it's a little easier.

It, it now students particularly a lot of times when people think about the Fafsa, I think about, oh, I have to do it only once, my senior year in high school.

No, you have to submit the Fafsa every year you're in college and so when you leave your school, your school, you know, if you're at state of high school, you have your support network there, and then you go off to U-dub.

You might not have that same support network.

And so you have to figure out as a 20 year old how to fill out the Fafsa.

And now there's a little simpler, but at least you have it done once, but you haven't done it once, so you're able to practice and go through it.

But even simplifying it for students who are currently in college has made it a little easier for them to actually submit the paperwork.

As a little aside here, do you think last year's confusion with it actuall I think it probably did.

You know, I think the data doesn't show.

Yeah, but I think that I think there was or I would say maybe some students decided to enroll at different places just because they might have not gotten the financial aid in time for them to make a decision.

You know, like, is it for us, a university to watch?

A lot of our students go there, and they were just waiting, like, do I need should I commit somewhere else?

Before this?

I was like, no, that's.

You want to go to U-dub?

Let's see what the, you know, financial aid packages.

But I do feel like there was an impact and maybe and I.

But it depends on, like, where she was wanted to go to school.

Yeah.

And thanks for making that point.

I want to make it again.

Michael, maybe you could help us with this.

I want to make sure I don't create the wrong impression with parents or grandparents who are listening to this.

Fafsa isn't going away, right?

You still make sure you do it.

Still do.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

The notion is if you get the guarantee, if you get the guaranteed and give me an 11th and 12th grade too.

But if you get what we're calling this guarantee.

Right.

Well, that's really not about a financial aid process.

We don't want to bring financial aid processes down to sophomores in high school.

What it's really about is the message they'll drop out.

You have in your hands a guarantee.

That means when you want to go to any of our public universities or colleges in three years, if you you will not get a tuition bill and most of your fees will be covered.

Yeah, you're going to get other aid to, but that will help you if you are at risk of falling off the pathway because of just being paralyzed, or sometimes just your parents.

I mean, we know a lot of young people and I experience myself a million years ago, you know, you're walking a tightrope, which sometimes somebody else in your family or household who isn't so sure you should be doing this right, you know, so the longer we can keep you on that path, right?

You know, by the time you get to 12th grade, we think if you really have a locked in plan, then there's still friction, there's still problems.

Will.

You know, easing that friction, solving for that problem is much easier than trying to get a 12th grader who gave up two years ago back on the.

And the point of this is, if you're in 10th grade and you know your family's snap or you know you're on free and reduced lunch, you know you're good.

Yeah, it helps increase.

Instead of saying, well, we'll see how the Fafsa turns out.

Yep.

Now you know.

Yeah, yeah yeah.

It's it's snap.

It's not all free lunch.

Most is free.

But, we'd love to have it be offering reduced price lunch.

We would love to have it be Apple Health Care.

We we love to have a system.

That's another one system that shows you are within the eligibility range anyway, right.

What about Apple Health.

That's a that's a good one.

That was discussed in the last legislative session.

I think people were just a little nervous.

There's always this concern that, wow, you know, if we give you this easy path to financial aid, 25,000 people will suddenly show up and do it.

And it's sort of like they I think that mindset is kind of what I would call, almost all respect a suburban mindset that's like, we've got all the issues solved about going to college.

It's just that tuition bill that's killing us.

So if you said you can pay for tuition, well, you know what?

Yeah, the problem is the population is we're trying to reach have a lot of other problems, issues, concerns that are blocking them besides just whether or not they're going to pay tuition.

Yeah, that may be the one they mentioned.

First in a poll or survey, but there's a lot of but there's a lot of other financial issues going on, and there's a lot of other life and other types of and bad messages they're getting from society.

I'm glad you brought up the suburban piece, because I'm going to hit you with the next one.

And I want you both to discuss this, as you well know.

And I remember this specifically, too.

There's this kind of difficult middle there, the rich people.

So yeah, they know they can go to Harvard.

They don't care.

The, the ultra low income people, they know they're probably going to get help and there's no problem.

That middle group that doesn't quite qualify.

But college tuition is still killing them.

That's true.

You know.

Yeah.

What about that?

Let me let me first say something really important for the Washington listeners out there.

Right.

And viewers, that, it's not just the ultra low income in this state.

The Washington College grant covers tuition fees for about a third of all households in the state of Washington.

Yeah, I mean, up to 121,000.

Yeah.

And and you'll get a partial grant up your fee up to half.

So so there are most high schools in the state, you're going to get 50% or more.

If you're a lower income high school.

It's going to be 60, 70, 80, 90% title one school or something.

But there's no question to to get to issue the forgotten middle.

I grew up in an era in which if you're from a middle class or maybe a little bit better family, you could out of your own part time jobs and your parents modest savings.

You could pay for it.

You could make a big dent.

You might take out a little loan, you know, which which I knew, which I did.

You can make it work.

The stress on the American middle class and even the, first levels of the upper middle class on housing costs and everything else is so severe.

Yep.

And that's one of the things we're trying to drill into, is to understand that we've actually seen among students and financial aid in the state, enrollment went up during Covid.

Overall enrollment did not go up.

Right.

So so students who are receiving financial aid were weathering the storm in the crisis better during those years.

Oh yeah.

Now, we also know that the affluent students were not being pushed aside by this either.

So we are trying to take a real, you know, number crunching a look and to make a case to the state to understand how much maybe this loss in enrollment is over concentrated in households that we used to think were, you know, had it covered.

So Victor, here's the devil's advocate.

Well, here you guys go again.

You want AppleCare, you want snap.

You want free and reduced lunch.

You want upper income.

You want lower income, and now you want the dang middle.

Do you think we'll ever get to just universal free tuition again, like in the old days in California?

What are your probably I mean, realistically, no, but I, I think that that idea is super important because I think that's the part I've, I've worked at many places universities, nonprofits.

And that middle is always been that conversation for so long.

And like, how do you support the middle?

What do you need to do?

And it's tough because because there's only so much money they can go around.

Right.

And how can you and then how do you support those students who are in that space.

And so much loan money is available, which is, in my humble opinion, has been part of the problem, if you ask me, when it comes to tuition costs.

So that's just editorial comment.

Sorry.

Continue.

Yeah, I, I comment for the same comment for me.

Right.

That the loan has become such an easier thing for people to see as a way for it.

You know, I, I say the colleges have also made made the loan kind of an easier thing to be like, wait, this can come here, we got this.

Yeah.

There's this for you.

Again, not saying, you know, you shouldn't take a loan, but be thoughtful about what that looks like and what you can do with it.

But, yeah, back to the middle of the.

It's, you know, how we how I think about how we work with our students and families who fall in that space is we're really thoughtful of let's take advantage of the Running Star program.

Let's take advantage of the college in our high school.

What can we do to maybe make it less, more affordable when you get there?

You know, three years or six, four years is a little cheaper.

There's some great two year schools, very nice articulation agreement.

And so we're going to but again that doesn't solve that financial problem right.

Yeah.

What we're trying to do now is just try to figure out a path to make it affordable for that family and for that student knowing that they're not going to receive as much financial aid.

And so we try to find solutions that aren't the main solution, but hopefully least giving them still hope.

Because also, I would I would be I would I would love to see some data on like what the enrollment numbers are for those students, and I bet they're going to be lower.

Or maybe those seniors go to community college versus going for years when they have the grade to go to a four year school.

And so I, I, I would love to see more data on that because I think that's we keep forgetting.

But yeah, we talk about it.

Michael, do you think, universal free tuition to offer higher education is pie in the sky or.

Well, my safe response is not in my career.

Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't yeah, I don't think it's like I, I've been involved in these issues and, and a lot of education is a lot of other issues for a long time, and I, I go back about 20 years ago in another state we're talking about could we have universal free.

Yeah.

Early childhood.

Right.

Yeah.

You know there and and I thought, well, we'll make great progress is in Washington has done tremendous progress.

Will will ever be the same way the core K-12 is.

No, I don't think so.

And I think what we have to do is figure out how to, this missing middle is going to require an approach that is more than just grants.

Probably last 60s here.

Gratuitous plugs.

Michael, what do people need to look at?

Get involved with?

What website can they check out?

Hit us.

They can check our site Wasatch aqua.gov.

It'll tell you everything you want to know about financial aid, but I also give you a jumping off point to other information about going to college so you can enter a lot of pathways there.

Victor, where can people get involved and learn more about what you do?

Minds matter.

Seattle.org simple.

Same thing.

What space and what exactly can your organization provide?

So we provide mentorship, for low income students, college access, academic enrichment, all those core pieces that maybe students are able to get at their school, some of that friction.

Yeah.

Getting it that it's, Fafsa nights to write some fast food nights.

Yes.

Man, I remember those.

All right, guys, great.

Great conversation.

Thanks, both of you.

I think we really laid out a great, a great case here for people to understand what's happening.

And I really appreciate you coming to northwest now.

Whether you have the money for college or not, going through the financial aid process is a nightmare, and improving it will open the door to college for more people.

The bottom line sending as many people to college as humanly possible is in everyone's interest.

Whether you're an employer looking to fill jobs or a taxpayer hoping for more people in the workforce to share the burden and increase tax receipts to shore up earned benefits programs like maybe Social Security and Medicare.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking.

You can find this program on the web at kbtc.org, stream it through the PBS app or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

That's going to do it for this edition of Northwest.

Now, until next time, I'm Tom Layson, thanks for watching.

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