As a teen working in landscape maintenance in Walton County, Matthew Tate never dreamed he would go to college. He came to Georgia Perimeter College’s Newton Campus after his employer encouraged him to seek higher education. 

Now Tate has a chance to complete his bachelor’s degree as a recipient of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship. The scholarship will pay up to $30,000 a year for up to three years for his undergraduate education at a four-year college. He hopes to pursue his electrical engineering degree at Georgia Tech.

Tate, who is a newlywed, currently is financing his own education at GPC through his job, Georgia’s HOPE scholarship and Pell grants. Dr. Sallie Vargis, the Newton Campus Honors Program advisor, recommended him for the scholarship.

When contacted, Tate was thrilled to learn that he had won the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship. “I had a lot of people praying for me,” Tate says. “I doubt more college would be possible without this scholarship.”

College wasn’t on Tate’s radar when he finished high school. He was homeschooled and never dreamed of going beyond high school as a teen. “My father was successful without a college degree and didn’t see a need for me to go to college,” he says. 

Instead, at 17, Tate started working as a maintenance man for a company in Walton County. “My boss gradually gave me more responsibility. After a while, I became a production manager and then got into product development and the engineering side,” Tate says. 

The work excited and challenged him. “It was a lot of work and a huge learning curve,” he says.  “My boss, after seeing me work with technology, finally got fed up and told me, ‘the clock is running—apply and go to college.”’ He started at GPC Newton in 2011. 

Now 22, Tate attends Georgia Perimeter part-time and works as an engineering technician, creating tools for missionaries who do community development work. He has traveled to Peru on a community development trip with his church and plans to go to Mozambique this summer to work on a water purification project. His boss continues to be his mentor, he says.

Vargis first met Tate while he was student in her Honors history class. Now he’s president of the Newton Campus honor society, Phi Theta Kappa.

“Matthew is a hard worker,” says Vargis. “I hope this scholarship will be a boost for him and make him realize that he’s worth it—he can do it.”