At 22, Paul Hastings may be the same age as many traditional college graduates, but this nontraditional student and online BSBA candidate from Lubbock, Texas is on a different journey than his friends. For one, most of his high-school friends are finishing up their college degrees.
Paul will be starting his fully online Bachelors of Science in Business Administration at Thomas Edison State College in the fall. And also finishing it.
Unlike his peers, he's been working full-time over the past two years, and he currently serves as a political analyst at a non-profit. It's a job many recent college grads would be thrilled to have. It wasn't Paul's choice to put college on the back burner -- his father asked him to hold off on college when his grandmother's illness put the family in a financial bind. But he doesn't regret the decision.
"I feel like I gained," says Paul. "I don't feel like I've missed anything ever."
Paul Hastings is one of three winners awarded a $1,000 scholarship offered twice a year by Get Educated, which will help him fund his online education. The awards can be used for any level of academic study, including bachelors or masters degree programs or certificates, or any length of academic study. High Cost of College Inspired Scholarship Winner to Different Path Education was an important part of of Paul's life growing up, and his family's as well.
For his entire life, Paul was home-schooled. He earned high grades, won honors as a National Merit Scholar, and has SAT scores ranging from the 97-99th percentile. He's won several statewide and national tournaments in competitive speech and debate. He's also an Eagle Scout. All those high achievements didn't insulate his family from the rough realities of financial instability. When his older brother went to college, everybody had to chip in.
"We cleaned houses to pay for his school," he said, to cover the cost of food, textbooks, and campus housing at his brother's private university in Houston. "I was sixteen, and it was one night -- at two in the morning -- I thought about this. 'Wow, we're really going through a lot to pay for his school," he recalls. "And I came to the realization that I really couldn't do that."
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