{"id":11329,"date":"2012-10-29T16:02:26","date_gmt":"2012-10-30T02:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=11329"},"modified":"2021-02-05T15:54:54","modified_gmt":"2021-02-06T01:54:54","slug":"unlikely-students-in-college-thanks-to-waialeale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2012\/10\/29\/unlikely-students-in-college-thanks-to-waialeale\/","title":{"rendered":"Students in college thanks to <span aria-label=\"Waialeale\">Wai&#699;ale&#699;ale<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><div class=\"responsive-video-wrap\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"676\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lji1I4B0sq8?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" title=\"YouTube video player\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><strong>Selina Lutao<\/strong> graduated from high school in 2011. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Kamuela Chandler<\/strong> is 38 years old. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Lisa Rapozo<\/strong> worked for the state for 13 years. <\/p>\n<p>They all have one thing in common. They would not be attending <a href=\"http:\/\/kauai.hawaii.edu\/\"><span aria-label=\"Kauai\">Kaua&#699;i<\/span> Community College<\/a> if it weren&#8217;t for the <span aria-label=\"Waialeale\">Wai&#699;ale&#699;ale<\/span> Project. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I didn&#8217;t have money,&rdquo; said Lutao. &ldquo;I never really think about financial aid. If it wasn&#8217;t for that scholarship, I wouldn&#8217;t have think about coming to school anyway.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;That&#8217;s pretty much the main hurdle that you have wanting to come to school,&rdquo; said Chandler. &ldquo;Who&#8217;s going to pay the bill and how are you going to get what you need for school and <span aria-label=\"Waialeale\">Wai&#699;ale&#699;ale<\/span> took care of that.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m still not done,&rdquo; said Rapozo. &ldquo;I still have way, way more to go but I am glad for the opportunity. The foundation that&#8217;s set for me, I know I can do this.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>The program works with social service agencies and high school counselors to find prospective candidates, people who were not considering college. The <span aria-label=\"Waialeale\">Wai&#699;ale&#699;ale<\/span> Project pays 100 percent of their tuition and books. Project Coordinator <strong>Kimo Perry<\/strong> says the program&#8217;s academic support is as important as the financial assistance. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It is the mentoring, it&#8217;s tutoring, it&#8217;s the summer activities before they come in for the first semester,&rdquo; said Perry. <\/p>\n<p>Or it&#8217;s whatever is needed. For instance, Lutao had a baby during midterms of her first semester. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Kimo helped me talk to my teachers and stuff and helped me get through,&rdquo; said Lutao. &ldquo;I ended up finishing with a 4.0 (grade point average) that semester and it&#8217;s pretty good.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>Research by the donor who initiated and is helping to fund the <span aria-label=\"Waialeale\">Wai&#699;ale&#699;ale<\/span> Project found that a person who completes just one year of college makes 30 percent more income over their lifetime compared to someone who never went to college. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;But what else he found out was a student who completes that first year, just one year, whether or not they attain a degree, lives seven years longer,&rdquo; said Perry. <\/p>\n<p>The programs gives participants a college experience which opens up a world of possibilities<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m a writer and I am thinking about getting into research,&rdquo; said Chandler. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I hope to have my own counseling, family therapy,&rdquo; said Rapozo. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I really want to open up my own restaurant,&rdquo; said Lutao. <\/p>\n<p>All three of those dreams would have never existed if it weren&#8217;t for the <span aria-label=\"Waialeale\">Wai&#699;ale&#699;ale<\/span> Project. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span aria-label=\"Kauai\">Kaua&#699;i<\/span> Community College&#8217;s <span aria-label=\"Waialeale\">Wai&#699;ale&#699;ale<\/span> Project provides 100 percent of tuition and books for students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,12],"tags":[678,64,572,71,56],"class_list":["post-11329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","category-video","tag-financial-aid","tag-kauai-community-college","tag-scholarship","tag-uh-community-colleges","tag-video-2","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11329"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135085,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11329\/revisions\/135085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}