Getting Strangers to Pay My Tuition

Some 2,000 people have responded to your e-mail asking for $2.50 donations. How much have you raised so far? Over $5,000. In two weeks. It's been a great response. Most of the money is from anonymous people, sent by mail. It could be a dollar or two or as much as a $10 bill. I also received some payments through PayPal.

How did you get this idea? I heard about it from a student who did this in Canada. It wasn't the same exact thing, but it was similar--a mass guerrilla campaign to raise money for college. I tweaked it and decided to give people a reward for helping me.

Are you really planning to send each donor a piece of your cap and gown in four years when you graduate from New York University? I have a spreadsheet with the person's name, address, and the amount they donated.

You're 18. Is this your first business venture? Not exactly. When I was in middle school, I started a little brownie-and-soda company selling items that my school didn't have in stock. I had a minicorporation of about four or five kids, and we raised some money. I'm not sure the exact amount, but the last year we raised over $4,000. It was pretty impressive. If people weren't pulling their weight, I had to fire them.

Your 765-word plea for tuition help notes that your mother is handicapped and your father has three jobs. Do you worry your e-mail looks like a scam? I definitely see why people might think it's a scam. They can check it out; they can call NYU's financial-aid office if they want ... I was trying to make it seem as unscam-like as possible. Which is kind of difficult when you're asking for money.

How many people have you sent the e-mail to? Two hundred people in my address book and about 100 people my mom thought would be interested. And I asked all those people to forward it.

Do you plan to e-mail more potential contributors? People have said, "Oh, why don't you buy a list from a website, and you can get a million people's e-mails for $40." But I don't want to do that, because it's impersonal and it's spamming.

Get Ready for $chool For more stories on the high cost of higher ed, go to time.com/payingforcollege