Former Cromwell College student Milasa Finau was one of the 16 students around New Zealand to receive a $40,000 scholarship from the Milford Foundation.
It was the third cohort of scholarship students, with some of the original group due to enter their final year of study, a Milford Foundation spokesperson said in a statement.
Miss Finau heard about the scholarship through the careers adviser at Cromwell College.
The application process involved being interviewed by representatives of the Milford Foundation.
"It was kind of scary but I got through it," she said.
For her first year at university she would study health science, then she hoped to move on to study for a bachelor of physiotherapy.
Miss Finau hoped to follow in the steps of her late father, who studied health at AUT as an international student from Tonga.
He was unable to complete his studies due to the high cost of the course, she said.
The four-year scholarship was a big relief, Miss Finau said.
While she hadn’t thought money would be a barrier to her study as she had looked at Studylink loans or taking a gap year, the scholarship meant she would not have a large debt.
Once she had graduated, Miss Finau hoped to use her degree in a way which helped repay her family and community.
"I like, represented my school in a lot of sports teams, and it's like, not easy to get to tournaments and stuff, there's a lot of fundraising involved, so even just being a physio for a sports team or anything like that for the school [would be good]," she said.
