Junior came to UAA campus by way of Arizona, oil fields

4/1/2001

His 4 1/2 -month-old son riding in a backpack, Michael Victors avoided the snow and ice outside and crossed the UAA campus on one of its elevated walkways on his way to a computer lab.

The 28-year-old has junior class standing, having attended Arizona State University in Tempe after he graduated from an Anchorage area high school. But he said the expenses of an out-of-state education and the distractions of a big campus drove him out of school and home to Alaska for well-paying work in the oil fields.

The loss of his oil field job in a massive layoff 18 months ago and the availability of a federal aid program that pays his tuition has him back on campus as a full-time education major.

The reason he chose UAA? “It was here,” he said.