Vermont invested in her. Now she’s coming back.

Two out of three young Vermonters say they want out, according to a 2026 Campaign for Vermont survey, citing costs, taxes, and a lack of opportunity. Makayla Towne plans to come back. The Curtis Fund helped make that possible.

Makayla grew up in Manchester, where money was always tight. She received new clothes once a year from her grandparents. Anything else, she earned through jobs at camps, after-school programs, mentoring—whatever paid.

Home carried other challenges, too. Her mom cycled through doctors for an illness no one could name. One brother, who has autism, spent a year in residential treatment; another, who has ADHD, struggled after he left. Some weeks, neighbors showed up with groceries or found extra work for her dad.

That’s where Makayla learned what community really means. In a recent psychotherapy class exercise, students were asked to rank their values. “Making a difference” and “community” landed at number one and two.

College was always the goal, but paying for it felt nearly impossible. Makayla spent high school searching for scholarships with mentors through Burr and Burton Academy’s Success Program. She had no co-signer for a parent or private loan, making every scholarship critical.

At BBA’s Scholarship Night, Makayla kept getting called to the stage. After her fourth award, she had already done the math: what she owed, what federal loans would cover, and what would still have to come from a private lender.

Then they called her name again.

“As each scholarship came in, it was like a load being taken off my back,” she says. “When I found out I got The Curtis Fund’s Northshire and Mettawee Valley Scholarship, I looked at my mom and said, ‘Mom, I have enough. I’m not taking out any private loans.’”

One scholarship closed the gap.

Without it, Makayla says she might have taken a gap year or worked two jobs just to stay enrolled. Instead, the scholarship gave her room not simply to attend college, but to fully participate in it.

Today, Makayla is a senior at Clark University, double majoring in biology and psychology, with minors in chemistry and health science and society. Her honors thesis explores the experiences of people assigned female at birth who were diagnosed with autism after age 16—a topic shaped in part by her own family experience and work with neurodivergent young people.

Outside the classroom, she serves on student council, participates in two honor societies, and created a mentoring program for first-generation students after recognizing how difficult her own transition to college had been. She also continues working with neurodivergent children in Vermont through Onward Rising.

After graduation, Makayla plans to work as a licensed behavioral technician while studying for the MCAT, then attend medical school and become a psychiatrist specializing in neurodivergent teens.

And then she plans to come home.

Vermont faces a shortage of child psychiatrists, and Makayla hopes eventually to open a practice here and offer free weekly sessions to families who otherwise could not afford care.

“I feel a responsibility to give back to the community that raised me,” she says. “They made what seemed impossible, possible.”

For Makayla, the scholarship was never just about earning a diploma. It gave her the freedom to mentor other first-generation students, conduct research that matters to her, serve neurodivergent children, and prepare for a career she intends to bring back to Vermont.

That is the return on a Curtis Fund scholarship: opportunity given to one Vermonter, multiplied through the lives and communities they go on to serve.

The Curtis Fund awards over 600 degree scholarships each year to Vermonters like Makayla, and another 250 scholarships to students pursuing certificates through short-term professional training programs. Since 1910, more than 14,000 Vermonters have been able to pursue post-secondary education because of it. For the Towne family, that number just went up by one.

To read more stories about Curtis Fund scholars, visit: https://www.thecurtisfund.org/meet-the-scholars 

Learn more about how to support Vermont students like Carter: https://www.thecurtisfund.org/donate#give-now 

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