For years, Anya’s path to a nursing degree looked less like a straight line and more like a series of hard stops and hopeful restarts. Paying tuition out of pocket at Quincy College because her immigration status made her ineligible for federal financial aid, she spent four years doing what so many determined students do: taking classes when she could afford them, stepping away when she couldn’t. What should have been a two-year associate’s degree took twice as long, but she finished.
Getting accepted to Laboure College’s nursing program should have been a moment of pure triumph. Instead, Anya found herself staring down a $10,000 per course price tag with no clear way to cover it. “One nursing course was like $10,000,” she recalls. “And due to me being Haitian, I didn’t have a citizenship status, which was the reason why I couldn’t apply for financial aid.” A referral eventually brought her to the Alray Scholars Program and then everything began to shift.
Before joining Alray, Anya was working 40-hour weeks while rushing from shifts to nursing classes, sitting down for exams exhausted and stretched thin. Her scores reflected it — she was hovering in the 60s and 70s, just trying to survive the coursework. One of her earliest exams came back a 69, in a course where 75 was the floor. “If it wasn’t for the finals, I would have probably failed that course,” she says.
“When I cut back on my hours because I had financial support, I became a straight-A student. I had more time to study because I didn’t have to work as much. I was less anxious. I was confident in what I was doing as a student and learning how to be a nurse.”
With the financial support of Alray’s scholarship, she was able to cut back her hours and finally give her studies the attention they deserved. Her grades didn’t just improve, they transformed. “When I cut back on my hours because I had financial support, I became a straight-A student. I had more time to study because I didn’t have to work as much. I was less anxious. I was confident in what I was doing as a student and learning how to be a nurse.” Anya shares. She finished her final courses with straight A’s, earning 90s on exams she once would have thought impossible. “I didn’t think I would ever make 90s in a nursing exam,” she says. “So I think that was one of my biggest accomplishments.”
The support from Alray went beyond financial relief. Anya was paired with a mentor, first a social worker, then a fellow nurse, who became a steady presence through some of her hardest moments. During one especially difficult stretch, when Anya was navigating depression alongside the pressures of nursing school, her mentor spent over an hour on the phone with her. “She took time out of her schedule to sit there and talk to me, to provide me comfort,” Anya says. “She was very welcoming.” For someone who admits she doesn’t like the feeling of burdening others, having someone show up so genuinely and consistently made a lasting impression.
Today, Anya is a hospice case manager —a role she describes as transformative. After a grueling first year in a high-acuity hospital setting, she found her footing in hospice care, where the work is slower, more intimate, and deeply human. She manages her own patient caseload, provides symptom management, and is present with patients and families at the end of life. “This job is more fulfilling. I get to know my patients as a person rather than their disease,” she says. “I get to provide them that comfort before they pass. Love doesn’t only come from family… you can meet a stranger and still provide that care for them.”
Looking ahead, Anya plans to earn her hospice certification and eventually return to school for her nurse practitioner degree. She’s also intrigued by dermatology and cosmetics, proof that nursing, as she always believed, can take you in more directions than most people imagine.
When asked what Alray has meant to her, she doesn’t hesitate. “Alray is a lifesaver. It gave me hope to not to give up—there is help out there,” she reflects. “It’s not just about academics or education. It’s about progressing overall, finding a job, having someone in your corner who shares the same experiences as you. Alray showed me that there are organizations out there that really do care and really do want you to succeed.”
Anya’s story was captured and written by Julianne Stein.