"It Gave Me a Path": One First-Gen Alum Paves the Way

When she talks about the University of Michigan, first-gen alumna P.M.R. (A.B. 1973; M.A. ’76) doesn’t mention rankings or accolades. She talks about gratitude.

“Michigan gave me a bright future, providing a path out of poverty by giving me the skills to succeed,” she says. “I wanted to honor the university and express my deep gratitude by establishing a scholarship.” 

Fifty years after she left Ann Arbor, P.M.R.’s planned gift to the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) will create a scholarship for first‑generation, low‑income students—students who, like her, are determined to make their own way but need financial help to get there. Students whose lives will change because someone believed in them.

P.M.R. grew up in Michigan in a family with modest means, yet in a household where education was cherished even when it was out of reach.

An immigrant from Lithuania, her mother left school after ninth grade to help support her parents and nine siblings. P.M.R. remembers her grandparents, whom she knew as a little girl, didn’t speak English and greatly relied on her mother, but it was only later that she fully understood what her mother had overcome.

Her mother never learned to drive. She never had a bank account. She worked as a waitress until she was in her 70s.

“What she taught me,” P.M.R. reflects, “was that you have to work hard, whatever you’re doing. You have to make your own way. You can’t rely on anyone else.”

That lesson became a cornerstone of P.M.R.’s life.

Her father’s story is equally powerful—and in many ways the inspiration for her scholarship. He was a gifted student who excelled in high school and loved reading about history and philosophy. She notes with pride that she, her sister, and her father all wrote for the same high school newspaper. Decades later, P.M.R. would leaf through his yearbook and be struck by how many activities and honors appeared beside his name.

“He would have been a star in college,” she says. “But he grew up during the Depression in very trying circumstances, raised by a single father after his mother died. College just wasn’t possible financially.”

What he did have was a fierce belief in the power of learning and the transformation that higher education offered, and that his daughters would get the education he never had. 

“From as young as I can remember, he told us, ‘You’re going to college,’” P.M.R. recalls. “That was his dream for us.”

He lived long enough to see P.M.R.’s older sister enroll at the University of Michigan, but passed away when P.M.R. was nine years old. In adulthood, P.M.R. discovered the letters he had written to her sister during her college years—letters filled with newspaper clippings, commentary on world events, and reflections on history and politics. They confirmed what she already knew: he had a gifted mind but simply never had access to financial resources to pursue higher education.

Her scholarship, she says, is for both of her parents: for the brilliant father who never had the opportunity to attend college, and for the mother who worked tirelessly so her daughters could.

By the time P.M.R. was ready for college, there was no question in her mind where she wanted to go.

“There were other schools in the state,” she remembers, “but my sister and I both had our sights set on the University of Michigan. We felt it was the premier school.”

She had worked from a young age, including in high school and summers, saving what she could for tuition. Nevertheless, a Michigan education would have been out of reach without substantial support.

Through a combination of university scholarships, state grants, and federal aid, P.M.R. was able to attend Michigan and graduate debt‑free. She is acutely aware that the same opportunity never existed for her father—and that, for many students today, aid alone no longer bridges the gap between aspiration and affordability.

“To be able to graduate without debt is so important when you’re starting your life. But for many students now,” she notes, “that’s increasingly impossible.”

That reality is one of the driving forces behind her scholarship: a recognition that hard work and talent are not enough when the financial barrier is too high, and that today’s first‑gen, low‑income students need more than determination to succeed.

Coming from a smaller community, P.M.R. was astonished by the scope of Michigan’s campus life.

“To meet fellow students from all over the country and all over the world—and to study with teaching fellows and professors from everywhere—that was an amazing eye‑opener,” she says. “It opened up the world for me.”

She completed an undergraduate degree in anthropology and later a master’s degree in art history. She also served as a teaching fellow, gaining experience in public speaking and leading discussions. At the time, she didn’t think much about how it would shape her career. Looking back, she sees it clearly.

“Having ‘University of Michigan’ on my résumé was a big benefit in itself,” she reflects. “But what I really took with me were the skills I developed: managing my time, analyzing information, putting ideas together, and communicating them clearly. You learn to think on your feet. Those are the skills you use in business, no matter what your major had been.”

When P.M.R. thinks about the students who will receive her scholarship, she sees reflections of her younger self—and of her parents.

She knows that many first‑generation students arrive on campus without a roadmap, trying to decode college life on their own or with limited guidance. She also knows that today’s financial landscape looks very different from when she attended, with tuition and living costs vastly higher and federal funding covering far less.

“You can work incredibly hard and still not be able to close that gap. That’s where a scholarship can make all the difference. It doesn’t replace students’ effort—it honors it, and makes it possible,” P.M.R. says. “This is my way of giving back everything I can to the place that opened the world to me.”

Access to life-changing education in the liberal arts and sciences can do more than reshape one first-generation student’s future. It can ripple outward across generations, turning opportunity into a legacy of possibility for everyone who comes after.