A Helping Hand to Higher Education

Finding your own way is easier said than done. Thankfully, there are generous Falcons in the world who believe in the worth and promise of those following in their flight paths.

On hot August days, the asphalt lanes of Route 38 in Tewksbury, Mass., seem to ripple with steam. In winter, commuters are lucky if the snowy road is plowed and sanded. Never mind the sidewalk. One wrong step could send a pedestrian sliding into the busy street.

Diana (Nelson) Gagnon ’14 well remembers walking that route in 2006 to and from her many jobs: head cashier at Home Depot, shift manager at Wendy’s, overnight cashier at McDonald’s.

She was saving for college. A Pittsburgh transplant in a New England mill town, Gagnon couldn’t afford a car, let alone the full cost of a college education. “It was a luxury, not a right,” she says. That luxury would take six years, countless overtime hours and her boyfriend (now husband) Paul sacrificing his own education to put hers first.

Throughout her childhood, Gagnon had watched her parents live paycheck to paycheck, each working at least two jobs at a time to support the family. “Right when I was graduating high school, my dad was just honest with me,” she remembers. “He said, ‘We want you to be in college, but we’re not going to be able to give you a single penny. You have to find your own way one day.’”

There’s a folder in Anne Marston’s Los Angeles home filled with letters of gratitude, Gagnon’s among them. Each year, a new one arrives, and Marston ’76 says, “It’s like Christmas.” Since she endowed her scholarship at Bentley almost 30 years ago, the retired financial executive never knows which student she’s helped until the mail comes.

The letters are a legacy of Bentley lives changed by an alumna’s generosity.

Marston matriculated at 26, having spent her years between high school and college working part-time at a grocery store and raising three kids. She knows the value of a dollar. “There weren’t many women in accounting in the ’70s,” she says. “Unfortunately, to me that hadn’t seemed to change much by the ’90s. I knew I needed to help anybody who wants to do this.”

Like Marston, Gagnon entered Bentley in her 20s, carefully choosing a university that would provide a strong return on investment. “The grants and scholarships spoke so loudly to me that I couldn’t say no,” she says. Still, she maximized every minute, stocking her summers with credits at Northern Essex Community College.

Life, as it does, took an unfair turn in Gagnon’s final semester. Paul was laid off. “I put my nose to the grindstone,” she says, completing six courses to graduate on schedule. The couple rode his severance to commencement to make sure she gained her degree without a dollar of debt. “I’m so proud I could do that for the both of us.”

Matt Santangelo ’00 spent his college Saturdays rising at 5 a.m. to drive home to Fitchburg, Mass. His first task: Open the family coffee shop. The rest of the weekend was spent waiting tables, working at the convenience store and refereeing youth sports.

Bentley wasn’t able to provide as much aid as he’d needed. But, he says, “It was the school that I felt the most passionate about going to. I told my parents: ‘Listen. If you’re willing to go 50-50 with me out of the gate, I promise you, by the time I leave, I’m going to prove to you academically that it was worth the investment.’”

By his junior year, Santangelo had earned a full ride. He transitioned to internships to help pay for everyday needs like food and books. Gas continued to be covered by his grandfather, who sent him $50 a month like clockwork. Santangelo says, “He never went to college, but he understood — long before I could fully appreciate it — how valuable my degree would be.”

Today, Santangelo is the CFO of software company Forcepoint and the founder of a scholarship in his grandfather’s name. The recipients and their stories, he admits, get him choked up. For the past five years, his scholarship has helped two students in the first generation of their families to attend college to realize their dreams.

Santangelo says he knows what it’s like to work hard, “but I can’t imagine the hardships these students have gone through.” 

Bob Ripley ’80 agrees. A native Bostonian and former banking executive, he started giving back to Bentley in his first year after graduation and has since donated more than $600,000, ensuring aid for scholarships in his estate plans. “The organizations I worked for paid for my graduate school,” he says. “So I thought, when you get in a position to give back, you should. And these students today … they are really exceptional young people who deserve an education that will take them places.”

On Friday the 13th of March 2020, the United States abruptly ground to a halt as a national emergency was declared due to COVID-19. First-year student Carmen Chen ’23 was suddenly quarantined at home in Quincy, Mass., just 20 miles from campus. Immigrants from China, Chen’s parents were also cut off from their lives and some essential income.

“You wouldn’t think studying from home is expensive, but money was as tight then as it was when I applied,” Chen says. She refused to let a virus steal her education: It was COVID versus Carmen, a former Air Force Junior Reserve Officer. A lifelong clarinet player who gamely took up French horn “because the band needed someone.” A first-generation American and college student who boarded a plane to study abroad in Scotland as soon as pandemic restrictions eased.

For Chen, Ripley’s scholarship was the difference between living a full, post-COVID life studying in Scotland and Waltham — and staying home to regroup. Today, she’s an assurance associate at PwC. “His aid was everything,” she says.

The emotional investment of a scholarship is often more powerful than the financial, says Santangelo: “Financial aid is directly impacting the lives of young people who are then impacting the world.”

Adds Gagnon: “What might seem like a small amount to one person can really add up for someone else. Imagine if everyone donated just $25.”

An accountant with Northland Investment Corporation, a real estate private equity firm, Gagnon has come a long way from those long walks to work at Home Depot. She and Paul are planning to buy a house. And she can’t thank Marston enough for helping her almost a decade ago: “There are no words to ever thank and repay her for what she did because every cent helped.” Gas, books, all the little things add up, she says.

“When your savings only go so far, a scholarship can change your life.”