The Impact on Students

Help from a friend, and a scholarship package, made college possible.

Back in June 2000, the wheels were already set in motion for Laurie Hyrkas to go to college. Then her father, a computer programmer, lost his job.

"I was planning to apply to schools that winter," Hyrkas recalls. "Suddenly it wasn’t clear how we were going to pay for it." Inspired by her plight, a family friend took Hyrkas under her wing, advocating her case with the University’s financial aid department. Hyrkas, a top student at Lakeville High School, was eventually awarded an impressive scholarship package that helped finance her education. The timing couldn’t have been better. For Hyrkas, scholarship money made college possible.

A high school job at a plant nursery inspired Hyrkas’s major in environmental horticulture. Now a sophomore, she hopes to one day become a plant breeder, creating new strains of plants with higher yields and greater pest resistance. It’s a high-minded goal, but she believes there’ll be no limit to what she can accomplish once she gets a college education under her belt

Learn how gifts like yours impact faculty, research and outreach at the U.

Faculty: Endowed faculty positions increase the U's ability to attract top students and recruit and retain world-class faculty.

Research: For the first time, University of Minnesota researchers have secured over half a billion dollars in research funding in a single year.

Outreach: University Libraries lends more books to other libraries than any other academic library in the nation. That mission has been assisted through the generosity of private support.