Yahoo Finance Drake Congratulates College Grad He Gave $50K Scholarship in 2018 for Earning Her Masters
Drake is celebrating a fan whose hard work paid off.
Back in 2018, while making his "God's Plan" music video in Miami, the Grammy winner awarded a $50,000 scholarship to then-University of Miami student Destiny James, who's originally from Denmark, South Carolina. James graduated from Miami in May 2019 with a bachelor's degree in public health.
This week, James will graduate from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a master's degree from the public health program. "Mama, I mastered it. Daddy, I did it 🎓 4 days until I am officially UNC Alum," she captioned an Instagram post, posing with her graduation garb.
In the comment section, Drake excitedly wrote, "LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DES," to which James — who also appeared in the "God's Plan" music video — replied, "THANK YOUUUU!!"
James discussed the life-changing scholarship she received from Drake in a May 2019 blog post on the University of Miami's website, recalling how she didn't envision graduating after the death of her father from cancer during her freshman year.
"If you would have told me my freshman year that I would be graduating from here today, I probably wouldn't have believed it," she said at the time.
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Karwai Tang/WireImage; destiny paris james/ instagram
Destiny Paris James/ instagram
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"I'm meant to be doing this work," she added at the time of her prospective career path. "Everything I went through was so worth it. Thanks to Drake, I'm probably stressing about classes and work, but I'm not stressing about tuition. I'm here to tell future 'Canes to not be afraid of change and trust the process."
In February 2018, James shared on Instagram what it was like being given the generous scholarship from the musician.
"Drake told me that he has read great things about me and appreciates how hard I've worked through so many trials and decided to give me $50K for my tuition," she wrote. "@champagnepapi THANK YOU SO MUCH!!' You don't understand what this means to me! I would've never imagined this happening to me. I'm just a girl from Denmark, SC that wants to MAKE IT and be somebody and for you to see my hard work means the world."
"Thank you so much. God I thank you. You are so great and amazing!" she continued. "Thank you for blessing me when I thought my hard work was going unnoticed. I'm living out my dreams. God's Plan."
