Gaby Perez's parents dropped out of middle school. Her mother works at Taco Bell, and her father does manual labor.

Anxious to break her family's cycle of poverty, the Terra Linda High School senior planned to do what no one in her family has ever done before—go to college. But she could not imagine raising the nearly $30,000 a year it costs to attend her dream University of California school.

In the fall, she's going to her first-choice college—the University of California at Davis.

"It's my dream school because I want to become a vet. I thought I would apply, but I didn't think I would get accepted," she says, smiling so widely that every tooth in her mouth shows. She hesitates and, underscoring how she still cannot believe her good luck, she adds, "It's amazing."