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We are excited to announce the July 2026 Financial Goals Scholarship winner is Nevin R! Congratulations!
"I am incredibly ecstatic to be selected as a recipient of the 1st Financial Bank USA Financial Goals Scholarship. As a student on the pre-medical track, I understand that are numerous costs associated with the journey to becoming a physician, in addition to undergraduate tuition. However, this scholarship will be immensely useful for tackling these costs, as well as any other unexpected costs I may face." - Nevin R.
Many college expenses can be planned for, like tuition, housing, and textbooks. However, at any time, unexpected financial emergencies can disrupt your budget and peace of mind. In his essay, Nevin shares a financial emergency he experienced in college and how he worked through it.
"The day before EMT school started, I reopened my registration email to double-check the classroom address. Instead, my eyes stopped on a line I had somehow missed: “Textbook: $500.” I stared at the screen for a few seconds, convinced I had misread it. I hadn’t. My ambulance corps was covering the $1,500 tuition, and I had spent weeks looking forward to finally learning how to care for patients instead of watching from the back. I thought everything was set, but not anymore. When I asked around, my friends confirmed my fears: the corps covered tuition, not the textbook. I walked to my desk, opened the drawer where I kept years of birthday and Christmas money, and counted the bills inside: $300. I counted again anyway, hoping more cash would somehow appear between old birthday cards and forgotten envelopes. Instead, I knew exactly where the missing money had gone. Ten dollars for Chick-fil-A after school. Mall trips with friends. A few bake sales supporting classmates’ clubs. None of those purchases had seemed significant on their own. Together, they were the difference between starting EMT school and staying home.
When I told my parents, they listened quietly. They weren’t reaching for their wallets. “This is something you wanted,” they reminded me. They were right. After years of driving me to every event, competition, and volunteer commitment, they had already invested way more in my opportunities than I realized. If becoming an EMT mattered to me, I needed to invest in it too. We made a deal: for every hour I volunteered with the corps, they would subtract one dollar from what I owed them. I agreed immediately, without stopping to calculate how many hours that meant. I volunteered before exams. I covered my friends’ shifts. One evening, three calls came in within three hours, leaving barely enough time to catch my breath before the next dispatch. Yet, once dispatch called, my attention shifted to the patient. Only after transporting the patient did I remember that a few dollars had disappeared from my debt.
By the time I finished paying my parents back, I realized the biggest expense had never been the textbook. It was the first time I understood what money represents. Before, money was simply something I spent. Afterward, it became something I could measure. I stopped thinking in dollars and started thinking in hours. That remaining $200 wasn’t repaid with cash. It was repaid with difficult calls and hours spent serving my community. The opportunities that matter most aren’t simply paid for, but earned. I still catch myself making that same calculation whenever I’m tempted to buy something I don't really need. Instead of asking, “Can I afford this?” I ask, “Is this worth the time I'll spend earning it?” Looking back, the most important line in that registration email wasn’t “Textbook Required: $500.” It was the lesson hidden behind it."
Established in the year 1910, 1st Financial Bank USA (1FBUSA) provides quality community banking services in South Dakota, credit card and other financial services to college students and college graduates, and construction lending to builders, developers, and investors from coast to coast. 1FBUSA will award a $2,000 scholarship to a new winner each month. View full rules and eligibility at 1fbusascholarship.com.
