Meet Our Latest TheLending Achiever: Nicole Bratcher-Bouyer!

Name: Nicole Bratcher-Bouyer

College: Howard University

Expected Major/Concentration: Media, Journalism, and Film Communications

Expected Degree: Bachelor of Arts

Expected Graduation Date: 2018

We’re thrilled to announce the latest recipient of the TheLending Achievers Scholarship, Nicole Bratcher-Bouyer! She blew us away with an introspective, searingly honest essay that detailed her path to financial literacy.

In some ways, Nicole’s story is a familiar one—hard-learned lessons about the need for money management. However, in many ways, it’s not. When she was in the 10th grade, her mom suffered a debilitating stroke, and Nicole became her sole caregiver. She faced daunting financial and personal hardship, but overcame it all to gain admission to one of the nation’s leading historically black colleges.

Now entering her senior year at Howard University (@HowardU), Nicole is a budding community advocate who co-founded an organization that helps her classmates pay down their student loan debt. She also led an initiative to deliver water to homeless persons during a late-summer heat wave, volunteered as a tutor for middle schoolers, travelled to New Orleans to alleviate a food desert in the 9th Ward, and ran a job training program for homeless persons that provided work clothes, resume workshops, hot meals, and access to personal records needed for applications. Whew!

And Nicole has big plans for the future. A communications major, she hopes to create a television network that promotes positive images of under-represented persons. Not stopping there, she wants to use her profits to fund homeless shelters, initiatives for children with disabled parents, and safe homes for orphaned kids.

The TheLending Achievers Scholarship is awarded four times a year through TheLending (@TheLendingniversity), our online financial literacy program. (If you ever wanted a little help creating a budget or figuring out ways to save, the interactive video lessons are a great way to get it. They’re free and available to all, so check them out!) Scholarship applicants submit an essay, and if they’re selected, they receive $2,500 for education costs.

We wish you the best, Nicole! With all of your hard work, tenacity, and heart, we know you’ll make your dreams come true!