In many regards, University of Pennsylvania sophomore Michael Keramidas is a typical college student, clad in a T-shirt and jeans, with a quick smile and a buzz cut. He was No. 1 in his high school class and applied to 15 colleges.
In high school, he participated in dozens of activities, including mock trial, student council, speech league, quiz team and more. He worked in the district office of his long-time state representative. During high school summers, Keramidas attended leadership camps, most recently at Cornell University.
At Penn, he joined the International Affairs Association, competed in the Model United Nations, worked with Penn Dems to educate voters about the new voter-ID law and in the fall will begin volunteering with Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
In other ways, he’s not so typical.
Keramidas is not from California, Florida or a faraway country. His hometown is in Central Pennsylvania, a five-hour train ride west of Philadelphia. His dad owns a Greek restaurant there, and his mom waits tables. Penn wasn’t even on his radar until he attended a college fair.
“Dad is a small-business owner,” Keramidas said. “He and Mom can’t support the sticker price here” at Penn.
In a news release last February, Penn President Amy Gutmann explained why that might be.
There are indeed no loans in Keramidas’ aid package. Since 2009, Penn has substituted grants for loans for aid-eligible undergraduates in the College, School of Nursing, School of Engineering and Applied Science and Wharton School.
And the University continues to increase the amount set aside for these students. In February, Penn trustees authorized a financial-aid budget of $181 million for 2012-13, a 129 percent increase since Gutmann took office in 2004.
Much of this is possible due to the generosity of donors to the University’s Making History campaign, which includes a $350 million goal for undergraduate student aid and another $323 million for graduate and professional student aid. Today nearly 45 percent of undergraduates, including Keramidas, receive direct grant support from Penn.
His education has been made possible by financial aid from the Joseph S. Doyle family, Trevor B. Price and Megan L. Sheetz as well as the Jesse R. Wike Memorial Scholarship through the generosity of Penelope Wike.
Keramidas was so grateful that he wrote to Gutmann.
I come from a very small city . . . where many of the people are not well off, including myself. I always had to work hard so that one day I could leave and go to a great university. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I'd be able to go to Penn. Because of the generous financial aid Penn offered me, I now have had the opportunity to study here, learn so many new things and meet many great people.
Thank you for making college affordable for me and thousands of other students like myself.
Was he looking for a big city experience?
Keramidas sees graduate school in his future, studying political science and economics. In fact, this summer he was on campus participating in a Penn Undergraduate Research Mentorship with economist Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde.
He also shared his love of Penn through a summer job with the admissions office, where he led daily tours for prospective students and their families.