Dray Bourgeois is a multiply disabled, first-generation college graduate who clawed his way past everything stacked against him—poverty, disability, doubt, and institutions that were never built for someone like him to succeed. He didn’t just graduate. He broke a cycle.
Across the country, college is costing more every year, while financial aid is getting harder to secure, and federal support increasingly politicized. These shifts hit first-generation, low-income students the hardest.
Before college, Dray’s family of five lived in Bennington and was barely getting by. Then his mother became blind and had to stop working. “We were low-income before,” he says, “but after my mom had to retire, we were really struggling. Two kids going to college at the same time? It just wouldn’t have happened without financial support.”
Dray and his brother are both recipients of a Curtis Fund scholarship. And in a household with no college tradition and limited income, that support helped them reach college and reshaped what their family believed was possible.
“There were so many sacrifices we made just to get by,” he says. He pushed for every bit of merit aid, juggled work and school, and refused to give up on himself, even when the odds were set against him.
“So many of my peers had never known true financial struggle. I felt like I didn’t belong. Like they thought less of me.” It reminded him just how deeply people underestimate students from backgrounds like his—and how much he had to overcome to prove they were wrong.
Yet he made it through. Dray earned his degree from Hampshire College and graduated without taking on debt thanks to his scholarship. Now, he’s building a life that once felt out of reach—he’s not living paycheck to paycheck anymore. He’s not putting his physical health at risk just to make rent. “I actually have savings now. I’m planning a wedding and putting money aside for a house, which never even felt possible before. That kind of future used to feel so out of reach.”
And now he’s using that momentum to help others do the same. At VSAC (Vermont Student Assistance Corporation), where he landed his first full-time job right out of college, he guides students through college applications and shows them what’s possible. He’s teaching them that people like them deserve to be in the rooms where futures are decided, because they’ve lived what’s at stake.
Dray was nominated for The Curtis Fund scholarship by his own VSAC counselor, who saw his potential before anyone else did. “She told me I was going to college. She wasn’t going to let me not go,” he remembers. When she called to tell him he’d received the award from The Curtis Fund, it was the first time it felt real. “It was a relief, but also this wave of possibility. Like maybe I could actually do this.”
Now Dray’s planning to pursue a master’s degree, potentially in special education, a field that overlaps with his current outreach work. And the ripple effect is clear: his parents, who never had the chance to attend college themselves, have been empowered by what Dray and his brother learned. “It’s even helped them make better financial decisions,” he says.
The Curtis Fund connects Vermonters with the access, support, and belief they need to pursue education, change what’s possible, and build a stronger future—for themselves, their families, and our state.
Community-based solutions are more vital now than ever. With federal aid being gutted, student debt climbing, and political attacks on public education accelerating, Dray is clear: “This is bigger than me. Some people will always have a way in. But for students like me, this kind of support is the only way forward.”
“It’s community-driven support like this that actually makes a difference,” he says. “Not with noise or performative policy, but by meeting people where they are and helping them move forward — for real.”
Learn more about Curtis Fund scholars at https://www.thecurtisfund.org/meet-the-scholars
Learn more about how to support Vermont student like Dray: https://www.thecurtisfund.org/donate#give-now