Even though her mother worked the night shift cleaning crew at Linfield College, Giselle Naranjo-Nelson never considered going to the college herself because she always thought the school was financially out of her family’s reach.
All that changed when the director of a now-defunct Upward Bound program at Linfield asked Giselle if she had planned to apply to the college where her mother worked.
“I’m like, ‘No, why?’” Giselle recounted. “He’s like, ‘Your mom works there.’ I’m like, ‘Yes?’, as if to say: What’s the point?
“‘Well, you get free tuition if you decide to come to Linfield,’” the Upward Bound director told her.
Giselle could hardly believe her ears. “I’m like, ‘Wait, what?’” Giselle said.
The idea that Giselle could attend Linfield for free came as a welcome surprise to her and her family. It was 2012 — her senior year in high school — and Giselle had been asking her parents for their financial information so that she could fill out her federal financial aid forms. One thing became painfully clear through the process: There was no way her parents could contribute anything financially toward her college education.
“My parents were both upset,” Giselle recalled of the sit-down discussion that she and her parents had on the couch in the family home in Dundee, Ore. “They had come to this country for one goal and that was to provide higher education to all of their children,” Giselle said. “My parents said: ‘We will support you but we cannot financially provide anything for you to go to college.’”
