MADISON — As the sun begins to set on an August evening, Emma Mason strides onto a glowing pasture on her family’s farm near Mineral Point, Wisconsin, and shouts to her three younger siblings, “Who’s bangin’ buckets tonight?”

Ben, 14, jumps off his four-wheeler, grabs two five-gallon pails, and starts bashing them together.

“That’s the dinner bell for cows,” Mason says. Dozens of black Angus purebred cattle saunter in, including Belle, whom Mason purchased in 2017 — her first heifer.

The farm is just an hour southwest of Madison but far from her other life at the University of Wisconsin¬–Madison, where she’s a freshman agricultural business management major in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

Mason always wanted to attend UW–Madison, but finances made it feel out of reach.

“The joke was that the only way she could ever go to Madison would be if she got a full-ride scholarship,” says her mom, Rose Mason-Gould.

Consider it done. Mason is one of about 1,150 new freshmen and transfer students this fall benefiting from Bucky’s Pell Pathway, now in its second year. Through the initiative, UW–Madison pledges to meet the full financial need for four years for all first-year students who are Wisconsin residents and qualify for Federal Pell Grants. The grants play a critical role in expanding college access for students in low-income households. The UW–Madison initiative goes even farther — covering not just full tuition and fees but also housing, meals, books and most other educational expenses.

Transfer students from Wisconsin meeting the same criteria receive two years of full-need funding. Money for the initiative comes from private donors and other institutional resources, not taxpayer money.

“This is going to make college so much easier for me,” Mason says. “I can focus on school now. It will allow me to be more present and make more memories.”

A standout student

Mason graduated with distinguished honors from Belmont High School, where she participated in Future Farmers of America, took Advanced Placement classes, served as president of the Future Business Leaders of America chapter, and sat first chair in the trumpet section of the concert band and the orchestra. She was a five-sport athlete and captained the girls’ wrestling squad.

At Scholarship Awards Night at her high school last spring, Mason’s name was called 25 times. It was an emotional moment for the entire family given what they’d been through.

When Mason was 7, her father died suddenly and unexpectedly of a genetic blood disorder. As the oldest child, Mason basically became a second mom to her siblings.

“I sometimes have to remind her that she’s not their mom and that she needs to think of herself,” Mason-Gould says, “because she would do anything for her brother and sisters.”

Mason-Gould remarried, and four years ago, the couple purchased the farm where the blended family of six now lives. Both parents work off the farm to augment the family’s income, but money is tight. Bucky’s Pell Pathway lifts a huge burden, Mason-Gould says.

“I was going to have to tell Emma the same thing my mom told me when I left home: Don’t call home for money because there is none. The reality is that our money goes to raising children and raising cattle.”

The program has provided similar relief, both financial and emotional, to thousands of other students in need across the state.

From instability to security

Bucky’s Pell Pathway has so far been awarded to about 3,750 UW–Madison students.

“When I learned that I got it, I cried,” says recipient Quincy Nesgoda, a transfer student this fall from the Barron County campus of UW–Eau Claire.

A first-generation college student, Nesgoda describes his life as having had “a lot of ups and downs.” He lived with his grandmother through much of high school and has been on his own since age 17.

“This will help with housing, with food, with putting gas in my car,” says Nesgoda, who is majoring in astronomy physics. “Finally, there’s a part of my life that has some security in it.”

Nesgoda says he threw himself at academics at a young age, realizing that higher education would be a path toward a better life.

“This is what I’ve been fighting for since I was 10,” he says.

For freshman Hugo Flores, a microbiology major from North Freedom, Bucky’s Pell Pathway means he’s able to live in a residence hall this fall instead of having to commute to classes from an hour away. For freshman Ava Roessler, a national-caliber curler from Trempealeau, Bucky’s Pell Pathway means she’ll be able to experience college without the worry of debt.

“I’ve been saving for college for as long as I can remember because I was very aware that my parents wouldn’t be able to help me much financially,” says Roessler, who is majoring in agroecology. “This is a huge gift and one I will never take lightly.”

For all these students, Bucky’s Pell Pathway has helped make the college experience possible. But it’s just the start of their stories.

The next chapter

Mason intends to use her major to become an ag loan officer, a career that would keep her close to the farm life she loves and allow her to give back to the rural community that helped raise her.

“I think she saw the process we went through to acquire this farm and wants to make it easier for others,” her mom says.

Mason has been on campus for about a month. She reports that she is doing very well overall, despite a little homesickness at times. She has attended meetings of three student organizations that she plans to join: the Association of Women in Agriculture; the Collegiate Farm Bureau; and Saddle and Sirloin, which puts on livestock shows. She’s been returning home most weekends, in part to check on her cows.

Her mom says that, as difficult as the adjustment has been for everyone in the family, she is proud of her daughter for taking this step.

“I miss her,” Mason-Gould says. “But it was time for Emma to move on to bigger and better things, to find her people and her place in the world.”