1:00
- family
- January 13, 2021
Girl opens college acceptance email at mom's grave
Skylar Hughes was accepted at Duke University, her top choice.
Video by Alyssa Gregory
1:00
Skylar Hughes said in that moment she felt the presence of her mom, who worked full-time in finance while also being a mom to her and her younger brother. James Hughes said he too felt the presence of his late wife, who suffered a brain aneurysm in 2015 and then was in a coma for the next year until her death.
\"At that point, we were two proud parents of our daughter,\" he said. \"That was one thing that Rasheda could participate in because she wasn’t able to participate in so many of the things that Skylar has done since she passed.\"
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/GMA/1-skylar-02-ht-iwb-210113_1610557493621_hpEmbed_18x13_384.jpg\")
But along with the \"euphoria\" that Skylar Hughes said she felt when she was accepted at Duke came another reality, the difficulties she and her family will face paying tuition at the private university, where tuition and fees run as high as nearly $80,000 per year, according to the university's website.
Even with her financial aid package, the Hughes family's estimated annual contribution is around $60,000 per year, according to both James and Skylar Hughes.
James Hughes said he is determined to make it work so that his daughter can attend her dream school, noting that he has told her, \"Your job is to apply to scholarships, go to school and get good grades and I’ll do the rest.\"
Skylar Hughes is continuing to work two part-time jobs to save money and has applied for more than 50 scholarships in the past month. Her cousins also started a GoFundMe account that has raised more than $46,000 and counting to help Skylar Hughes attend Duke University.
Skylar Hughes set her eyes on Duke University as a young child because of their strong marine science program. She said she hopes to become a marine biology researcher and help find cures to medical conditions like the brain aneurysm that took her mother's life.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/GMA/3-skylar-02-ht-iwb-210113_1610557493630_hpEmbed_3x4_384.jpg\")
\"I just want to show people that you’re more than your circumstance,\" she said. \"After my mom passed, it would have just been so easy for me to be like, ‘That’s it.’ I could have very easily have just done the bare minimum for the rest of my childhood and no one would have questioned it.\"
\"I thank my dad and all my aunts and my grandma for always pushing me to be my best and for putting this fire in me,\" Skylar added.
Arianne Belzer, who taught Skylar Hughes for two years in her Latin class at Grayson High School, told \"GMA\" that she is confident figuring out a way to attend Duke University will just be one more challenge at which Skylar Hughes excels.
\"When I grow up I want to be more like Skylar,\" she said. \"I’m just so proud of how many challenges she’s stared down and said, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do this and I’m going to do it anyway.’\"
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