Scholarships, grants and state aid make college possible for NAU student
Josh Barreda made a decision during his senior year of high school that is paying big dividends now. He decided to forgo the Westwood High football team and instead use his time to apply for scholarships for college. Each day after lunch, Barreda went to the career center at the Mesa, Ariz., high school for an hour. “I dedicated an hour to applying for scholarships every day. I looked at it as a class,” he says. He worked on his personal statement, resume and references and received help from the counselors staffing the center. Many days an adviser would hand him a scholarship application and suggest he apply. He applied for 15 scholarships and received six. As a result of his hard work, he received enough financial aid to cover his costs at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. A combination of scholarships, a federal Pell Grant and state merit-based aid are funding his tuition and living expenses. “If I didn’t have financial aid, I would not be going to college,” he says. “I’d be working in a restaurant, saving money and attending community college when I could. It definitely would have postponed my graduation by several years.” Barreda and his family moved to Arizona from California when he was in the 8th grade. His father had lost his job, and they came to the state to live with an aunt. Although his dad found work soon after arriving, with four children in the family, bills and rent, Barreda says there’s no money for college. He and his older sister share an apartment in Flagstaff, and both receive financial aid to attend NAU. Barreda is working toward a degree in hotel-and-restaurant management and hopes one day to open his own hotel and restaurant. A straight-A student in high school, Barreda says freshman year is going well so far. Does he think he made the right choice in high school? Absolutely. “Applying for scholarships instead of playing football definitely helped me in the long run,” he says. —Courtesy of USA Funds