Her eyes light up when she talks about her favorite subject — math — saying it’s the satisfaction of solving problems that makes it so. She writes poetry and, like most seventh graders, loves anything and everything to do with technology. What sets Jamya Moore apart from her peers, however, is that she’s already won a scholarship to college.
Last month, Moore became one of only 11 middle school students in North Carolina to be awarded the Victor E. Bell Jr. Special Scholarship Fund, an honor granted to “assist high potential North Carolina students with limited financial resources to pursue higher education.” From now until her fourth year of college, once a year $2,000 will be contributed into an account set up through North Carolina’s National College Savings Program (NCSP) to be used for her college education.

“As long as her grades are where they need to be…if she keeps things up the way she should — which she will — she’ll earn up to $20,000 towards college,” said Dale Cole, principal of Chocowinity Middle School.
The conditions of the funds are simple: stay in school, make As and Bs in academic courses, do well on standardized testing, don’t get suspended, go to a North Carolina college and continue to get good grades. Should, for some reason, one of the recipients fail to meet the conditions of the scholarship, the money will be dispersed to give another student a chance at higher education. Moore, a consistent A honor roll student, doesn’t have a problem with the criteria.
“My parents are preachers. That’s what they believe in—religion and education,” said a soft-spoken Moore. “They believe in striving for more in life.”
That belief extends to gratefulness and staying humble: “My parents put my certificate right beside my bed, so I can see it first thing when I wake up.”
Moore not only credits her parents, but also her fifth grade teacher, Kellyn Wright, with setting her on the right path, saying that Wright steered her towards the kids who take their schoolwork more seriously.
“When I got here, I didn’t really thing about being different from anyone else,” said Moore. “She pushed me to be in a different crowd.”
Cole describes the fund set up by the College Foundation of North Carolina, called a NCSP 529 Account, as a 401K for education. The $2,000-a-year contributions are invested in a range of options, conservative to aggressive, by the account’s owner. In the case of Moore and other recipients of the Victor Bell Scholarship, CFNC is the owner of their account, though the sole beneficiaries are the scholarship recipients. Depending on how the money is invested, the $20,000 maximum contribution could potentially pay out a lot more for Moore’s future education.
Moore may have been singled out by her teachers as a rising star in school, but she also stars as a singer and drummer at her church, Emmanuel Tabernacle, on Asbury Church Road.
A music lover, a poetry writer, a problem solver—Moore thinks she may grow up to be a teacher or computer engineer. Either way, she has a bright future in higher education.