USU student shares Gates’ fortune
Luz Bravo, a student at Utah State University, was awarded a Gates Millennium Scholarship last semester.
Funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the scholarship will provide Bravo $1,800 per semester through all four years of college while she keeps a minimum GPA of 3.3, said Susan Carkin, Bravo’s Intensive English professor, who nominated Bravo for the scholarship.
To qualify, a scholarship nominee must show high academic achievement, severe financial need and leadership capabilities.
Bravo is currently working three jobs and raising her daughter, April, while attending school. It hasn’t been easy, she said.
“I try to do my best every day at school. When I opened the letter, I was so happy. I told everybody,” Bravo said.
She said the award was an exciting surprise for her and her family.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “My mom and dad were so happy and proud.”
Bravo is working with computers in business and hopes to help others acquire computer skills for business applications.
The second of four girls, she is the first in her family to attend college, as well as the first to receive a college scholarship.
She moved to Utah from Guanajuato, Mexico, six years ago as a freshman in high school.
She attended Mountain Crest High School in Hyrum.
Directed by the United Negro College Fund, Inc., the Gates Millennium Scholarship is aimed at increasing university enrollment rates of low-income minority students, both graduate and undergraduate.
Minority students, according to William H. Gray III, president and CEO of UNCFI, include African Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives and Hispanic Americans.