When school started last fall, Grace Likens got a taste of what life would be like without scholarship assistance.
"I found out first hand," she says with a rueful chuckle. For two weeks while her work schedule was being adjusted to less time, Likens, the mother of a busy two-year-old, worked 35 hours a week while taking a full load of classes. "Between going to school, working, and taking care of my son, I was so stressed out that I pretty much cried every day," she recalls.
Winning the 3M Alumni Undergraduate Merit Scholarship, a Kirby Puckett Scholarship, and the Morton Katz Scholarship changed everything.
A stellar high school student, Likens focused on her studies even after she became pregnant. It wasn’t easy, but Likens now sees the birth of her son as more of a blessing than a setback. She promised herself that she would create a stable, financially secure life for him. And she is well on her way. A marketing major, Likens maintains a grade point average of 4.0 and plans to use her knowledge of Spanish to market products and services to the country’s growing Latino population.
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