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When you support student potential ... you give opportunity

“With this scholarship, it will be one more student who can break out and get a great education and degree. Who knows, there could be a future Nobel Prize recipient!” — David Ho

Image: "I was incredibly excited when I found out about receiving this scholarship. Thanks to this scholarship, I likely will not have to take out any loans for my undergraduate degree, which I am obviously very happy about, and it will make it easier to afford any post undergraduate schooling I choose to pursue," said Thomas Holland '24, recipient of the S. H. Ho Foundation, David and Martha Ho, MA ’78 Family Scholarship and member of the highly selective Binghamton University Scholars Program. He hopes to become a civil rights attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union so he can help people.
"I was incredibly excited when I found out about receiving this scholarship. Thanks to this scholarship, I likely will not have to take out any loans for my undergraduate degree, which I am obviously very happy about, and it will make it easier to afford any post undergraduate schooling I choose to pursue," said Thomas Holland '24, recipient of the S. H. Ho Foundation, David and Martha Ho, MA ’78 Family Scholarship and member of the highly selective Binghamton University Scholars Program. He hopes to become a civil rights attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union so he can help people. Image Credit: Jonathan Cohen.

For David and Martha Ho, MA ’78, the college experience, particularly for new students, is special and invaluable.

Through the S. H. Ho Foundation Ltd., they established a scholarship to support the dreams of high-achieving, first-year students with financial need, and aid in student recruitment and retention.

“Ideas and wonderful programs are rich on campus and it is a wonderful breeding ground for learning and experiencing,” Martha Ho said. “Both of us were lucky enough to get this experience and it has impacted our lives positively.”

Image: Martha Ho, MA '78.
Martha Ho, MA '78. Image Credit: Provided.

She described how her Binghamton master’s degree in economics helped her get her first job, then aided in the development of the couple’s auto dealership, Pacific BMW, which they opened in Glendale, Calif., in 1982.

“My classes had students from all different fields, ages and different ways of learning,” Martha Ho said. “I learned analytical thinking, how to find information, how to dissect this information. Later on as we took on our own business, it helped me tremendously in setting it up and expanding it.

“The education I received at Binghamton was first rate, personalized and no nonsense. David and I are now in the position where we can help the next generation of young people to get the same opportunity, one at a time.”

David Ho said the S. H. Ho Foundation, created by his grandfather, supports educational opportunities for qualified students who need assistance.

Image: David Ho.
David Ho. Image Credit: Provided.

“He taught us to be humble, listen to all and help others,” David Ho said. “He came from this same unassuming background starting as a dishwasher in a small restaurant. If he could make something of himself despite all the hardships he faced, we all can as well."