NMHED News:

Northern New Mexico College student Evelyn Juarez sat down with leaders at the New Mexico Higher Education Department to talk about the challenges college students face, and the importance of state financial aid programs like the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship.

Click here to watch Evelyn share her story. 

“Since I was very young, my parents instilled in me the importance of obtaining education, a college degree, even though neither one of them ever got to college,” Juarez said. According to a 2020 Lumina Foundation report, just 47 percent of New Mexicans have attained education beyond high school, with only 25 percent of these being Hispanic students and only 20 percent Native American. 

Juarez aspires to become a physician in either family medicine or in the emergency room and plans to apply to medical school this summer. She hopes to return to northern New Mexico to serve the community she grew up in. 

When asked what challenges she and other New Mexico students face, Juarez said that paying for college has been the biggest obstacle. 

“Many times it is the Lottery Scholarship, the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship, and all the other scholarships offered by our state that are the determining factors between a New Mexico student saying, ‘yes, I am going to take the step forward and I’m going to go to college,’ especially our non-traditional students,” she said.

In 2020, 15,000 students benefited from the New Mexico Opportunity and New Mexico Lottery Scholarships. With the passage of S.B. 135, the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship Act, up to 30,000 could benefit from tuition-free college. 

To learn more about the New Mexico Opportunity and Lottery Scholarships, visit www.hed.state.nm.us or talk to your college’s financial aid office.