The YesSheCanCampaign fights scholarship displacement

Zaniya Lewis was 18 years old in 2016 when she appeared on the cover of Seventeen magazine with Michelle Obama, who told her that people always have to reinvent themselves in order to keep growing, even if it lands you in unexpected places. That same year, Lewis started a nonprofit that aims to empower, inspire and share the stories of young women who are overcoming adversity while they strive to complete their education.

Today, Lewis, who is now a senior at GW, pays it forward with the Yes She Can Campaign, which she first thought up in 2016 as an Instagram account that shared stories of young women who faced adversity in higher education.

“I grew up in a military family and my dad served in the military for over 23 years and throughout that time I saw a lot of nonprofits giving back to my family and giving us blankets, food—everything we needed while my dad was away, deployed, and so that really taught me to pay it forward.”

At first, the account was used solely as a platform for other young women to share their challenges in higher education and how they overcame them. Initially, Lewis was reluctant to disseminate her own tale of adversity.

“Actually having most girls start writing their stories and how they were overcoming adversity—what struggles they were going through—I was like,’Wow, everyone is going through this, and we can really create a community.’ ”

What started online eventually blossomed into something much bigger. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit has partnered with GW’s Multicultural Student Services Center to provide an internship program for juniors at the School Without Walls as well as putting on their own affordable, professional conference. While the Campaign has been given opportunities to grow through the MSSC and GW, Lewis still stresses the flaws inherent to the college education system, despite her achievements.

This past May, Lewis was awarded a $25,000 scholarship from Taco Bell, the highest amount of money that the company gifts to an individual student. Upon presenting the scholarship to GW, Lewis’ loans and federal work study funds were retracted. This, Lewis said, she can understand.

That was, until GW cut her need-based aid in half.

“So now that I thought I would have to be paying less, I actually have to pay more. And so, schools have these outside scholarship policies that no one really knows about.”

Yes She Can Campaign operations director, GW sophomore Gabrielle Bello, experienced a similar situation. After initially believing she would be attending GW on nearly a full ride, the school delayed her first semester scholarship until January of her freshman year. Then, the school mistakenly piled on a $30,000 charge to her tuition bill. When Bello brought the charge to the attention of the financial aid office, she was asked to write a $30,000 check that would eventually be refunded.

“But I told them that I can't do that because, one, I didn't expect to pay it and, two, I’m not the kind of person who has $30,000 laying around because if I did I wouldn't need your scholarships,” Bello said.

Wanting out of this precarious situation, Bello attempted to transfer out of GW after a financial appeal ended in a one-time $5,000 award. When she went to request her transcript, she discovered a hold had been placed on her account—essentially barring her from leaving the university.

Brittany Abraham, a program coordinator for Community Support and advisor to the first generation community, said there are many reasons for holds to appear on student accounts. As for Bello’s predicament, she could only speculate from previous experience that the charges could be for tuition deposits.

This is just a small glance into what many college students experiencing adversity in pursuing their education describe as a lack of empathy toward students with financial hardships.

Aryanna Richardson, a sophomore at GW and a first generation college student, had to scramble for money to pay her tuition when her financial aid was delayed.

“That was extra stress because now my mom is trying to figure out how she can come up with this amount of money. And then they said, ‘Why don’t you take out a loan?’ I don’t want to take out another loan because I already have loans taken out,” Richardson said.

Left with no choice, Richardson took out the loan with a $2,000 reduction on her financial aid. While it may not sound like a lot to some, for Richardson’s single parent home that is now expected to pay $1,200 out of pocket this semester, every dollar counts.

"A $500 problem is often the reason why a first generation student drops out of school, which is not a lot of money but it's one thing that just topples everything,” said Abraham.

For Lewis and Bello this has been disheartening to say the least and has frustratingly driven them to further action.

On Nov. 1, Yes She Can Campaign launched a new initiative to put an end to the scholarship displacement Lewis experienced after receiving her outside award. They will be meeting with Rep. Andy Kim’s staff, have already launched a call to action protest on Capitol Hill and have bombarded social media with stories from female college students who have experienced more of the same—cuts by private universities to need-based aid upon the addition of outside scholarships.

“Somebody on Facebook said they messed with the wrong people. I said yeah, they should have never messed with me. They thought I was just going to walk in and get a loan and be fine with it. Nah, I don’t play like that,” Lewis said.