Once homeless, Toronto woman gets accepted into Harvard — community helps pay for it

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Toronto native Toni Morgan is certainly not the first to be accepted into Harvard, but her journey to the Ivy League school is a unique and wonderful story.

“I am an unlikely success story so this is incredible,” she told the Toronto Star. “The fact that Toronto banded together makes me feel like the sky is the limit. I feel so humbled.”

Morgan, 32, was accepted into the Ivy League school’s prestigious masters of education program this coming fall — a dream come true for a woman who was once homeless.

As a teenager, Morgan fled an unstable home environment and bounced around from shelter to shelter, taking on odd jobs to survive. Unable to consistently attend classes or keep up her grades, she eventually dropped out of high school altogether.

“I had been kicked out a couple of times, but I decided not to go back because I was embarrassed to admit that I had no place to live,” Morgan told the Toronto Star. “The last time I was kicked out my vice principal turned to me and said that I would never have a university degree.”

She set out to prove the vice principal wrong.

While living at the YWCA, she started saving her money earned as a telemarketer to pay for a postsecondary education — and then earned a Bachelor of Arts for equity and diversity studies at Ryerson University. It took her 10 years to graduate.

“I just wanted to get that undergrad degree that the principal said I couldn’t get,” Morgan said.

Since graduating, Morgan has been working in the nonprofit sector in the areas of community housing and youth justice. She even secured a teaching position at Centennial College.

Only one thing was left to pursue: her masters.

She secretly applied to Harvard three months ago.

“On January 5th, 2015 at 11:49PM after 5 months of self-talk and 18 months of academic preparation, I submitted my application to Harvard University,” she wrote.

And she got in.

“So. I did it. I applied to the most prestigious university in the world…and got in,” she said in a YouTube video.

And now she has one final obstacle: the money.

Tuition and housing will cost Morgan $71,000 USD — $50,000 is for tuition, student fees and mandatory health insurance — money a non-profit worker like herself just doesn’t have. And because she’s a mature student without a consistent near-perfect GPA, scholarships aren’t available to her.

Instead of turning down Harvard, however, Morgan is counting on the kindness of strangers, raising funds for her education through crowdfunding.

“My biggest issue is covering tuition. No tuition, no Harvard. I will live on a park bench if it means I can attend this school, but I need your help to make sure I get there,” she wrote on GoFundMe.

So far, she’s raised over $65,000 toward her $71,000 goal. (She needs to raise the money before May 15, her U.S. visa-application deadline. She can’t secure the visa without proof she can afford the program.)

“It’s overwhelming,” she told the Toronto Star in a follow-up interview. “I am still coming to terms with the reality that I am actually going (to Harvard) because of all these people.”

Morgan’s masters program will focus on non-traditional and alternative education.

“Young people are told, ‘This is as far as you can go,’ and decide they aren’t going to try,” she told CTV News, reflecting on her struggles as a young student and the discouragement she received from her then-vice principal. She hopes to bring a new perspective to the system that once failed her.

"Once you’re outside of the education system, you learn a lot about what’s wrong,” she added.

Morgan hopes her story of struggle and triumph can inspire other young people to “swing for the fences and hope for a home run.”

“There are a lot of people who have been told they aren’t capable of something and as someone who has experienced homelessness and lived in poverty, I know others can identify with these situations,” she told the Toronto Star. “I want them to believe in a great city where we prop each other up and get behind each other. That’s why this is so important to me.”