TORONTO – Tonika Morgan applied to Harvard, but never expected to get accepted right away.
She thought her application process would be a long journey, but an email and then a package and letter in the mail with the official crest and logo on the letterhead of the Ivy League school proved otherwise.
“I kept checking to see if it was really my name,” Morgan told Global News. Looking at the letter with her name on it brought her to tears.
The 32-year-old has not had an easy life and said when she was younger she often left home because things were unstable. Morgan dropped in and out of school and started living in a shelter at the age of 19.
“I didn’t have a job, I had been kicked out of school, and just had this lingering shade of this experience I had with the school system that told me I was incapable,” Morgan said. “Being poor, not having any money, we had a $3 a day shelter allowance and basically had to walk through the City and really figure your life out and you are all alone.”
“It was really lonely, really sad and you all carry the shame with you and you don’t want to talk to people about it.”
Morgan got a job, saved her money and a few years later went back to school. She attended Ryerson University as an adult student, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree for Equity and Diversity studies.
“Just having met so many administrators that told me I was incapable it became this group of people I wanted to prove wrong whether I see them or not,” she said.
While she went to school, Morgan was heavily involved in the community, working with the City of Toronto’s youth justice program, the Jane and Finch Community Centre, and with Toronto Community Housing.
“I had a manager at the time who decided she was going to give me a budget to create my own youth program,” Morgan said. “I organized this youth group, started calling people, and getting connected to the city. It gave me a way to introduce myself to the rest of the world.”
Morgan currently works with an organization that helps single moms get their life on track, many of whom have gone through similar experiences she had faced growing up.
Her goal with these women was to show them anything is possible, even getting into in an Ivy League school.
What Morgan did not expect was getting accepted to Harvard on her first try. But it appears getting accepted is the easy part.
One year tuition to Harvard comes at a price tag of $50,000. Add living expenses and it goes up to $71,000. Morgan says she does not have the money, making the offer of admittance bitter sweet.
On the advice of her friends, she started a GoFundMe campaign in hopes of raising enough money to pay for her first year. Morgan said the response has been overwhelming.
As of April 17 she has raised close to $67,000.
Morgan will be attending the Graduate School of Education at Harvard where she will be focusing her studies on non-traditional education.
Her goal is to design education programs that meet the needs of all students and to study how education works around the world and compare and apply what models work best to help students learn better.
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