Kaylah read the Dallas County Promise scholarship requirements in high school and immediately assumed she didn’t qualify.
She had done something most students hadn’t: she earned her associate’s degree while still in high school. That was the problem—or so she thought. “I thought I was ineligible because I thought you had to graduate high school first and then proceed to get your two-year degree,” she recalls. One misread sentence nearly cost her a scholarship she had already earned.
She thought wrong. She was eligible.
“When I first found out that I was eligible, I was super, super excited. And it definitely made picking a college a lot easier for me. Because I was conflicted between a few.”
Finding Direction
That conflict resolved quickly once the financial picture clarified. Kaylah enrolled at East Texas A&M (a school she had been weighing alongside others) and leaned on the support system that had guided her through high school: her college and career center counselor. She knew she wanted to study business. She just wasn’t sure which direction to take it. After working through the options with her counselor, the answer came into focus. “We decided on marketing,” she says, “and it has been marketing ever since.”
“Because of Dallas County Promise, I’m able to fulfill my career goals. [It] gave me a leg up in my career for sure.”
Paying Dividends
That decision is now five years old and still paying dividends. Today, Kaylah is the Marketing and Community Relations Manager at Israel Perez Law in Garland, Texas—a role that asks her to be creative, community-minded, and strategic all at once. “I’m able to do the work that I love to do every single day, which is community relations, community engagement, social media, different designs. I’m allowed to be creative because I had that type of backing.”
The part that means the most to her? “The part that stands out to me is definitely helping people in need,” she says. “It’s really exciting and really fulfilling.”
The Power of Support
Dallas County Promise didn’t make her career. Kaylah did that. But the program removed the financial pressure that might have slowed everything down or forced difficult tradeoffs for her entire family. “Without Dallas County Promise, I would have still attended college, because I know it’s a dream of not only myself, but my parents. But it definitely would have been more of financial responsibility on all of us. Both my mom, dad and myself.”
When she first heard about the free tuition benefit, skepticism was her first reaction. “I was like, oh, it’s too good to be true,” she says. It wasn’t.
A Launchpad for Success
Five years into a career she loves, Kaylah’s story is less about a scholarship and more about what happens when someone refuses to self-select out before they even apply, and what becomes possible when the system meets them where they are. “Because of Dallas County Promise, I’m able to fulfill my career goals,” she says. “This kind of gave me a leg up in my career for sure.”
She almost talked herself out of it. She didn’t. And that made all the difference.
