A high school senior in Lowell took an unconventional route to help earn money to pay for her college education.
Emily Stutz said she has a 4.0 GPA, volunteers in her community, belongs to clubs and teams at school and works two jobs. She hopes to study psychology and eventually go to medical school and become a psychiatrist. She got into all eight colleges she applied to but said she does not have the money to pay for tuition.
"My parents both work and give as much as possible but they’re not able to cosign loans, so there’s a big gap of money missing here and I have no way of getting it," said Stutz.
Stutz said she got merit money from colleges but no financial aid. She then decided to try panhandling in an effort to pay for school. Over the weekend, she stood outside Target Plaza in Lowell with a sign saying she hopes to attend college but has no way to pay for it.
"She joked around about it and we didn’t really think it would happen but she’s a real go-getter and she wanted to bring awareness to the fact that college costs are skyrocketing out of control," said Hal Stutz, Emily’s father.
Stutz has since set up a GoFundMe page. She has raised enough money to pay for one year at a state college and said she hopes to bring attention to how expensive college is.
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