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DeKalb, IL — After receiving $9.4 million in scholarships from 144 colleges in 2019, Normandie Cormier is looking to pay it forward by helping other students receive scholarship money to combat the student debt crisis.
Cormier, 20, has worked to help college-bound students earn almost $400 million in scholarships and grants while a neuroscience major at Xavier University of Louisiana. Cormier started the company XollegePass to help students find ways to pay for college.
“Student debt is crazy in America,” Cormier said, according to Louisiana Weekly. “I think making sure every student had the pivotal academic and financial resources available to succeed and graduate debt-free was really important to me.”
Over 44 million Americans have student debt, totaling over $1.7 trillion in the U.S. in 2021.
Cormier said through XollegePass, she provides tutoring, ACT and SAT prep and scholarship application support for any student regardless of their background.
“I grew up in a low-income neighborhood and was raised by a single mother who worked numerous jobs to make the best for my brother and me, most of my strength comes from my mom,” Cormier said, according to Louisiana Weekly. “A lot of times I did not see a lot of different academic opportunities to excel. I feel like it is so important for those opportunities to be accessible to students right now.”
Cormier has partnered with universities and grant programs to help send students to college. The program offers monthly scholarships, full-ride scholarships, academic scholarships, celebrity scholarships, company scholarships and student-athlete scholarships.
“I feel myself as being someone who was called to do something and I think that what I am doing now through XollegePass is part of my calling,” Cormier said, according to Louisiana Weekly. “This is only the beginning and there is so much more in store.”