Oakland University to Cover 100 Percent of Teen’s Tuition After Losing Scholarship

By Victor Ochieng

Zavion Woodruff put in every effort to get the coveted Kalamazoo Promise Scholarship, which is guaranteed to every student who has studied in a Kalamazoo Public School (KPS). Some of the rules require that a student study in KPS from kindergarten all the way to 12th grade. Woodruff did everything according to the regulations, and even more she kept her grades up. At the end of her high school studies, she graduated from Loy Norrix High School with high honors and a GPA. But she received bad news when her scholarship was revoked since they discovered that for a while she was homeless.

Woodruff was homeless after she and her family had to move out of the KPS district and into a shelter for six months. And this became the reason why her scholarship was revoked.

Fortunately for the young lady, Oakland University reached out to offer her a 100% tuition grant. This is following her desire to have the opportunity to study Mechanical Engineering at Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Their offer, however, does not include her books and an a-mount reaching $1,640.

Before getting this news from the University, she had toured the institution. This also happened prior to her loss of the scholarship. It was her dream to go there for her college studies, and therefore the grant be-comes a dream-come-true for the young woman. According to reports by FOX-17, the grant is worth between $5000 and $6000.

This amount remaining would not have been affordable for her to carter for, however she was smart enough to start a GoFundMe page. And she set her goal at $12000 to pay for college tuition before the good news arrived, but the page has garnered over $17, 000. This is more than enough, and she indicated that the extra amount will go to her younger sister’s college fund. The page has been shared hundreds of times with many people being moved by the unfortunate loss of her scholarship. Amongst those that have shared the page is Oakland University leadership.

Woodruff is amongst the few lucky people whose misfortune got to make headlines and as a result got her help. There are many girls whose dreams are shattered and there is never anyone available to assist them get up. Because of this, many, especially from minority groups, lose out on education.

Our society today has gotten to the point where those who are poor are more disadvantaged when it comes to getting help than those who are able,  an irony that it is difficult to understand. Being homeless today will not attract sympathy from people or institutions. Instead it gets you to lose us on many opportunities. Until we get to a point when we care and carry one another’s burden as our own, it is hard to discover talents that are perishing in the corners of our societies. A better world is a united world that holds each other’s hand to create a more suitable place to live.