Film Student Gets Boost From USA Funds Scholarship

Editor’s Note: The following is a feature from the USA Funds^® 2007 annual report. USA Funds Education Access Report is highlighting the students featured in the annual report to show how USA Funds is getting results for students. To access the full report online, you’ll need Adobe Reader.

At age 30, Joshua Caraballo can boast educational and career accomplishments that would put many twice his age to shame.

Earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Pursuing a doctoral degree, which he plans to receive in 2010. Establishing and running a film company. Teaching filmmaking, acting and screenwriting to college students. Receiving recognition for his work as a filmmaker, educator and student.

And overcoming health obstacles along the way.

But Caraballo isn’t done yet. And the education that has helped the Coconut Creek, Fla., resident achieve so much is not inexpensive.

That’s where financial aid comes in. Caraballo says that aid — including a USA Funds Access to Education Scholarship and USA Funds-guaranteed education loans — are helping him satisfy his passion for lifelong learning.

“Having an education is extremely important,” Caraballo says. “I don’t want to rely on just luck with the hope that’s how my life will be taken care of. But without financial aid, it wouldn’t have been possible for me to go to school.”

In 2007 USA Funds awarded more than $8.3 million in USA Funds Access to Education Scholarships^® to help 5,623 low-to-moderate-income students nationwide pursue higher education. Since 2002, the scholarship program has provided more than $42 million to assist more than 13,000 students.

And the more than $25 billion in education loans that USA Funds guaranteed in 2007 helped 1.7 million students and parents pay postsecondary education expenses. During the past 47 years, the USA Funds guarantee has supported a total of nearly $154 billion in financial aid for 18.2 million students and parents.

For Caraballo, such assistance is helping to ease his concerns about paying for work toward his doctoral degree in global leadership from Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla.

“I really can appreciate an organization like USA Funds that takes time out to assist people in achieving their dreams,” he says. “I enjoyed learning so much when I got my bachelor’s, and when I got my master’s, it was the best thing I’d ever done. But now that I’m getting my Ph.D., I’ve never learned so much in my life.”

The USA Funds Access to Education Scholarships program provides $1,500 scholarships for full-time undergraduate, graduate and professional students, and half-time undergraduate students. The scholarships assist students in financial need, with a special emphasis on students who are members of ethnic minority groups or are physically disabled.

“USA Funds,” Caraballo says, “is giving me the support that helps me see that I can graduate when I want to.”

When he does graduate with that doctoral degree, Caraballo’s options will be many. His master’s degree is in motion-picture producing from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla., where he was named outstanding graduate student in his academic division. His bachelor’s degree is in theater arts from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

He created his film company, Minerva Films, as he was completing his master’s thesis — a 45-minute movie that earned him the top feature-film award at a Florida independent-film festival.

Caraballo chose global leadership as the focus of his doctoral work as a way to gain insight on how best to lead Minerva Films. While Caraballo would be happy to stay in the Miami area, home to a bustling film and television industry, he also sees himself returning to his hometown of New York City to do work in movies and television.

Another possibility for Caraballo’s future is teaching. He’s been honored for his work as an adjunct professor at Digital Media Arts College in Boca Raton. Caraballo has held that position for more than two years. He credits his work in the classroom — both as student and teacher — with improving his filmmaking.
 
“Education has helped me to understand how important it is to create a venue where everyone has an open mind, and where people rely on you and feel safe to try,” he says. “It’s important to let them know they can trust you to take them to a place where they can finish a project, even if it’s a very difficult thing to do.”

Caraballo knows a thing or two about tackling difficult things. In 1995, shortly after starting college at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease. He moved to Florida, where his parents live, to receive treatment — all the while remembering the love of learning that he developed during his time in college in New York.

Two years later and cancer-free, he enrolled at Florida Atlantic University.

And last summer, concerned about his education expenses for 2007–2008 and beyond, Caraballo got a pleasant surprise that he says helped him get “that boost” again: He would receive that USA Funds scholarship for which he’d applied.

“Something like this scholarship gives you renewed faith,” he says.

To encourage success stories like Caraballo’s, in 2007 USA Funds awarded a total of more than $8.6 million in scholarships through its own initiatives. Among the other USA Funds-provided scholarships are $315,000 in USA Funds Scholars awards presented to 210 students. The $1,500 awards go to high school seniors in the states where USA Funds is the federally designated guarantor of education loans, and in the communities where USA Funds has offices.

USA Funds also awarded a total of $350,000 to the scholarship funds of the American Indian College Fund, Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Thurgood Marshall College Fund and the United Negro College Fund. Additionally, USA Funds provided financial and staff support to scholarship organizations’ fund-raising activities. In 2007 USA Funds-sponsored events for the American Indian College Fund, Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund, HSF and UNCF raised $1.7 million toward scholarships.

Caraballo says he hopes USA Funds’ giving will inspire other organizations to do the same.

“There are a lot of ways to assist and a lot of companies that offer support to students, but there can never be too many,” he says. “When people acknowledge students — which is what USA Funds has done for me — it shows that those students aren’t just numbers. USA Funds showed me that it appreciates what I do and wants to assist me. And that really means a lot.”