Arelise Vasquez
Opening Doors to Opportunity
Arelise Vasquez flew under the radar in high school. But thanks to the Osceola Prosper scholarship, she's attracting attention as an SGA leader.
— by Linda Shrieves
When she was in high school, Arelise Vasquez was a good student, but it didn’t seem like anyone noticed.
“I was a good student, but I wasn’t one of those students who got recognized for academic achievements,” she says.
She dreamed of going away to college and, in her senior year, she applied to colleges and universities throughout Florida. Unfortunately, those plans fell through. Luckily for Arelise, when that door closed, another one opened. And in her case, it was a door to Valencia College.
Only months before Arelise was scheduled to graduate from high school, Osceola County commissioners announced that they were creating a new program called “Osceola Prosper” – which would pay for every graduating senior to attend Valencia College or to Osceola Technical College (oTech) for free.
Inside the auditorium at Poinciana High School, where Commissioner Brandon Arrington made the announcement, Arelise turned to a friend in shock. “Is this for real?” she whispered. But as the shock wore off, she was overjoyed.
“This burden of how to pay for college was immediately lifted off my shoulders,” says Arelise. “I didn’t have to stress how I was going to financially provide for my education.”
At Valencia College's Osceola Campus, Arelise Vasquez is learning leadership skills as president of the student government association.
For Arelise, whose mom didn’t have the money to help her, the free tuition provided by Osceola Prosper not only paid for classes, but opened up other opportunities – because she didn’t have to work outside of school to pay for her classes. Once unnoticed in high school, Arelise joined the Student Government Association on the Osceola Campus and was named president of the campus SGA in her first year at Valencia.
“I knew, financially, I wasn’t able to pay off this huge student loan or debt. I would have definitely had to work full-time or part-time and go to school, so I wouldn’t have been able to be as involved as I am right now."
Arelise, now 19, comes from a family of auto mechanics and is currently studying business and hopes to work in the auto industry. For now, however, she’s learning how to be a leader right here in her own community.
“I wasn’t sure how I was going to like Valencia,” she says. “I didn’t get into my dream school, but all along, what I didn’t know was this: Valencia was my dream school, and this first year has been absolutely amazing.”
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