Nothing for Granted

Written by Benjamin Hodges (B.A. '08)

This past January, Asia Haywood woke one morning to some bad news. A chemistry major, Haywood had only one semester left before graduating in May. But there was something terribly wrong with her student account — a $1,500 balance.

The daughter of an Army officer, Haywood had gotten through her first three and a half years at Georgia State on the HOPE Scholarship with some assistance from the military for her father’s two decades of service. Haywood and her parents had been working together to pay for the expenses her scholarships didn’t cover, but they weren’t expecting these charges.

“I didn’t have the money to pay it, and my family had already helped me as much as they could,” she remembers. “I cried about it for a day or two. I only had three classes left, and I thought I wasn’t going to make it because I didn’t have $1,500. Then, on the day I was supposed to be dropped from my classes, the hold on my account disappeared. The fee was gone. I was so confused.”

She called the Financial Aid Office for an explanation and was directed to a page on her PAWS account that held the answer. There, she saw a note that said, “Congratulations!” and something about a Panther Retention Grant in the exact amount of her balance due.

“I called my mom and all my friends and just burst out crying,” Haywood says. “I had heard of Panther Retention Grants, but I didn’t know how they worked and certainly wasn’t expecting one.”

Praised by former President Barack Obama, Panther Retention Grants are small, need-based awards the university gives out every year to students short on funds but just months away from a diploma. Averaging $900 each, the grants help students overcome unmet financial needs and have brought thousands of students back to school to graduate when they would otherwise have had to drop out.

Thanks to the grant, Haywood is graduating this spring — right on time. She has her sights set on a career in the business and management side of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields — fundraising, programming, curriculum development — and plans to start graduate school in the next two years. In the meantime, she’s going straight to work. She begins a teaching position with Project Morry in New York this summer while she applies for STEM jobs up and down the East Coast and overseas.

Haywood has made good use of her time at Georgia State. The 2018 Homecoming Princess, she has worked on campus as a tour guide, a New Student Orientation leader, a psychology lab research assistant and an ambassador for the 1913 Society. She spent much of her time outside the classroom volunteering with the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and Brothers Leading and Cultivating Knowledge. Of all her student experiences at Georgia State, however, she’s most excited about her work on the Student Advisory Board at the College of Arts & Sciences, where she got to participate in the administrative side of STEM education and research she’s so interested in pursuing.

Well after she walks across the stage at commencement, once she’s on to the next chapter of her journey, she’ll still be thinking about how close she was to withdrawing.

“I’ve always known Georgia State cared, and I’ve always wanted to believe it, but what happened to me was so much more,” she says. “I fell at the finish line, and my school picked me up and pushed me across. This was my Georgia State moment. I hope every student who comes here gets that moment, too.”