I believe that having come from a
low-income family and having been a
first generation student myself means
that i can play a translational role I
can both speak for first-generation
students but also speak the language of
academia and maybe also speak the
language of Washington you know we're
all after the same things we're all
trying to to make the world better
I don't do my research so that I can see it
in a journal I do my research so it can
affect the world and moving it from the
journal into the newspaper and into the
halls of Congress is the way we can
actually affect the world this is a
great University and I want low
income kids in the state to know that it's
open to them if they work hard enough
making a difference right here at my
home institution has been extremely
gratifying the testifying before
congress pretty cool but hearing from
the individual students whose lives are
changed by a scholarship is it is it's
probably the most moving to me
I remember the first time I met Sue
Dynarski... 19 years old she was super super
bright she had capacity i didn't know
how fortunate I was to go to college and
to get my degree and then get more
degrees so I didn't know how unusual I
was I didn't feel unusual at the time I
was just taking the path that was open
to me and grabbing each opportunity that
arrived she came knowing who she was she
was working class Somerville kid which
made her extremely unusual. It had a big thing that said
"Dynarski" I still have the letters at home.
this is the front porch of the house I
lived in my entire childhood this was a
working-class neighborhood
I didn't have much in the way of career
aspirations i have to say i didn't
really think much of the world beyond
Somerville. you know you're kind of stuck
here and world was here. I continued to
sort of ignore the whole idea of college
i think i knew i was going to go at some
point but didn't start thinking about
anything particularly ambitious then
senior year I took the SAT... scores came
in i think I called my sister 
to help me interpret the scores
and I think she's like those are really
good
apparently I test well
all the teachers knew my scores when I
got to school and they're all flipped
out the guidance counselor said you know
apply wherever you want to and so I'd
heard of Harvard it's a mile away from
where I'm sitting
so I applied there i'd heard of Brown
and i applied there i didn't know the
names of any of the other Ivey's so didn't
apply to any other ones I certainly
didn't have any guidance for anybody
who's been to any of these places and
went through the application process by
myself, my mom was super supportive
brought me snacks all the time but you
know it was me filling in everything
and typing all the applications and when
I you know got the various acceptances
the main thing i was looking at was the
financial-aid letter to see what the
cost was going to be it turned out that
with the financial aid they were offering
Harvard cost me less than UMass, Boston
cost me less than Boston university so i
decided to go to Harvard
I did think that a great gift was being
given to me that society was investing
an enormous amount of resources in me
the cost of educating somebody at a
place like Harvard, University of
Michigan is enormous and you know we're
sinking a lot of resources into
those students and to me that made me
feel like I would need to give back to
society in some way
I'd like to make the path clearer and
smoother for future kids so that they
don't need as much luck as i did i know
they're smart bright kids and we need to
have an education system that helps them
that gets them through school and makes
the most of each person
