Sam Upah

Iowa State University

Sam says that both of his parents went to college, and two of his siblings were completing their degrees by the time he arrived at Iowa State. As such, Sam never had a doubt that he would attend college, his goal to become a high school literature and language arts teacher.

Sam says his Pell Grant “covered half of my tuition every semester…but even with a Pell Grant, I still worked multiple jobs throughout college to pay for housing, food, and the odds and ends that are required to graduate from college.” Sam, who graduated from Iowa State in May 2021 , says that #DoublePell would have eased “my worries about my future as a teacher and the possibility of student loans that I might never be able to pay off.”