A 13-year-old boy from
Minnesota will soon earn his bachelor's degree from college - with a major in
physics and a minor in math - and has been accepted into the University of
Minnesota's Physics PhD program.
Now his parents are trying
to figure out how to pay for it.
Elliott Tanner is participating
in undergraduate research at the University of Minnesota while also tutoring
classmates.
He wants to be a
high-energy theoretical physicist and eventually a professor of physics at the
university. However, tuition costs for the graduate program have been an
obstacle, his mother, Michelle Tanner, said.
Even as an in-state resident, Elliott's family will have to pay a total of about $40,600 for the fall and spring semesters, or roughly $20,300 per semester, according to the OneStop university website.
“You don’t think you’re going to have to pay for college for a 9-year-old, let alone grad school for a 13-year-old. So we weren’t prepared for that part,” Michelle Tanner said.
'We're just trying to
explore all our options, and coming up with dead ends,' Michelle said. 'Trying
to apply for any scholarships, fellowships, grants, and we have not been successful.'
'We were shocked to
discover the university did not extend a financial package to Elliott,' she
added. 'Only 3 percent of incoming physics PhD students in the US do not
receive a tuition waiver and/or financial package, so we never imagined that we
would be scrambling to fund Elliott’s education at 13 years old.'
The parents launched a GoFundMe for Elliott's graduate school tuition that has already raised $25,059 out of $44,000 goal as of Sunday.
On Friday, his mother said
the family had reached its goal to fund his first year in the school's graduate
program.
Elliott's mom said he
started reading and doing math by age 3.
Following a few years of
homeschooling and a high school curriculum that took him two years to complete,
he began taking college classes when he was 9.
Elliott will
formally graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and Minor
in Mathematics this month.
From Daily Mail
