Justin Villanueva stands in front of a building at Henry Ford College in Dearborn, MI.
At 24 years old, Justin Villanueva had everything he wanted: a job that paid well, a family who loved him, and a home that he had worked hard to own. But he felt something was missing.
Humble Beginnings
How does a California native come to recruit transfer students to the University of Michigan? Villanueva recalls his home life as broken after his parents split up. His mother moved the family back to Michigan where she had grown up so she could get back on her feet. As a single mother from a working class background, she told her sons that they needed to graduate from high school—but there was no support for additional educational opportunities. “I was different from my brothers,” Villanueva says. “I loved to talk with adults—there was no Internet back then, so they were the ones who knew stuff. But I was always told to go away.” He was eventually diagnosed with what was then called attention deficit disorder. It went untreated until he was 42.
As a young man, Villanueva was a talented athlete. He played basketball and football well enough that D3 colleges were beginning to scout him—only for them to lose interest after they saw his grades. Though he was interested in school, he lacked the institutional support to help him succeed academically. After graduating from high school with a GPA of 1.9, he began to make a living doing landscaping work. And then, at age 20, he made what he now calls the best mistake of his life.
A New Journey
It was a match made in church: young Villanueva met Melissa, and they quickly married. At the time, Melissa was a college student at U-M Dearborn. She recognized her new husband’s inquisitive nature and invited him to an introductory sociology class. It was the first time he had ever attended a college lecture. “People were asking questions,” he says, remembering the moment. “It was OK to not know something. People were talking, giving their opinions, and trying to work through things. And I fell in love with that environment.”
Despite his new interest, Villanueva was concurrently establishing his profession in the trades. To this day, he remains a card-carrying member of United Association Local 704 Detroit Sprinkler Fitters, which he credits with getting him out of poverty. His life and career were on the right track: He was serving an apprenticeship, the money stabilized his new family, and he was feeling optimistic about their economic future.
Melissa had other ideas. One day, while pregnant with their first child, she got Villanueva in the car and drove him to the admissions office at Henry Ford College. Wracked with fear, Villanueva sat frozen in the passenger seat until Melissa took him by the hand and walked him into the building. Villanueva’s ADHD made it difficult for him to read and follow directions, so Melissa filled out the necessary forms and signed him up for the appropriate placement tests. Villanueva was soon attending his first college course: basic algebra. And he aced it.
A Dual Life
Villanueva now played two parts: an undergraduate student and a hardworking young father. As a student, he flourished. He had never gotten As in his high school classes, and the community college environment rewarded his curiosity and creative thinking. But he had been raised to believe that education was a means to an end. He already owned a home; he already supported his family. At times, he didn’t understand what the point in pursuing an associate degree was.
Twelve years went by. Melissa gave birth to their second child and stayed at home raising the children while Villanueva worked full time fitting sprinklers. He would take courses intermittently, acing each one, but still feeling the powerful cognitive dissonance of his dual life. He recalls calling his best friend sobbing, wondering why he had chosen the path that he was on.
One of Villanueva’s work projects brought him to Ann Arbor to fit the sprinklers for the Crisler Center. A lifelong Michigan football fan, Villanueva had romanticized the idea of living in town. He and Melissa bought a house in Ann Arbor to shorten the commute, which wiped out their bank account but brought him closer to campus. At an appointment at Henry Ford one day, his academic advisor marveled over his 4.0 GPA. “That’s probably good enough to get into Michigan, huh?” Villanueva joked.
His advisor looked at him. Villanueva definitely had the grades to write a successful application.
But Villanueva didn’t let himself dream. The new house had eaten up all of the family’s savings, and he told himself that he wouldn’t go back to finish his associate’s degree, a qualification he needed in order to apply to U-M. Again, Melissa set him straight. She showed him a scholarship application from the United Association, which he applied for and won. On August 18, 2014, Villanueva graduated with his associate’s degree from Henry Ford College with a 4.0 GPA, after 12 years of hard work, and immediately submitted an application to transfer to U-M.
Uphill Battles
A few weeks later, Villanueva logged into Wolverine Access to see whether he had been accepted as a transfer student. His body practically vibrated with excitement. “It was like a manifestation,” he says of the application. “It was proof of my own effort, and I was getting positive reinforcement from it.” He clicked on the status of his transfer application.
Denied, said the portal.
Villanueva’s world shattered. He had just been laid off from his job. The family had $1,000 in the bank. Melissa had been working as a substitute teacher to support them. “I started getting ideas like, ‘getting an education isn’t for people like me,’” he says. “I had failed my family.”
He picked up the phone and called his admissions officer. “What did I do wrong?” he asked her, on the brink of a breakdown. Her answer was so simple that it brought him back to reality: he just needed a few more courses at a community college in order to transfer. Villanueva immediately signed up for the requisite classes at Washtenaw Community College, and once he had checked the necessary boxes, he updated his application for the following semester.
One otherwise average day at work, Villanueva was assigned to work on the sprinkler system at the North Campus Research Complex (NCRC) at U-M. An email pinged into his inbox: his acceptance letter to the University of Michigan. “I pulled over,” he says now. “I couldn’t drive. To this day, it still makes me feel good to think about.” Filled with hope and excitement, he enrolled in classes part-time, all while working his full-time job as a sub-foreman at Little Caesars Arena. To get it all done, he woke up at 4 a.m. every day, drove into Detroit before his shift to do his homework, went to work, drove back to night classes in Ann Arbor, and came home to his family at nine.
The pressures of balancing work, school, and life soon overwhelmed him. In the dead of winter 2014, Villanueva sent a text to his wife on his way to work. I don’t know why I’m doing this. Why am I going to school? Why am I working so hard? I’m trying to do my best, and it doesn’t seem like it’s doing any good. About an hour later, Melissa wrote back: I have an idea when you get home. I want to talk to you about it.
Recalling this moment, Villanueva fights back tears. “Hey,” he recalls Melissa saying. “I sat down and did the money. You can quit fitting sprinklers for a year and focus on school. And you can go to U-M and finish your degree.” It was the first time Villanueva was ever allowed to be a full-time student. He threw himself into his studies, completing a full course load over a whole academic year, taking a long break from the manual work he had done his whole life. His efforts did not go unnoticed—at the end of his degree, he received an email from U-M’s Marsal School of Education. Would he be interested in pursuing a graduate degree?
“I remember being honest with myself,” he says now. “I just wanted to help students like me.” Later, one of his advisors asked what that might look like. “I love this,” he told her. “If I hit the lottery, I would just go to school.”
Villanueva speaks with one of his advisees on Henry Ford College's campus.
Now 44 years old, Villanueva works as the senior transfer recruitment coordinator for LSA—one of four transfer student recruiters in the college. But his unorthodox education has provided a foundation for much more. “I’m a better citizen of the world,” he says. Attending Henry Ford College exposed him to a great diversity of students, particularly in terms of religion: raised Pentecostal, Villanueva had never met someone Muslim before. At U-M, he took a Women and Gender Studies course whose syllabus he reflects on often as a parent of a trans child.
How is his family doing now? One of his sons works as a mechanic in Ann Arbor, while the other takes courses at Washtenaw Community College. Melissa is an ESL teacher at Ann Arbor Public Schools who still supports Villanueva in his life’s ambitions. “She’s what I’m trying to be for these students,” Villanueva says. “I wouldn’t be without her.”
One recent fall day, Villanueva is back at his first alma mater (Henry Ford College) talking about his second alma mater (U-M). He draws students like a magnet, answering students’ questions about their journeys with a welcoming smile. Are they good enough to attend U-M? Yes, they are. Will he guide them through the application process? Yes, he will. Thanks to him, these prospective transfer students have all the tools they need.
“I want students to be free to think for themselves,” he says. “This is an ode to higher education.”
