CLEVELAND – Going to college isn't for everyone. For those who choose to go, getting extra financial help through Say Yes Cleveland makes the idea of going to college easier.

Ayanna Brown-Hagwood is a high school senior. She attended a college fair not too long ago and said she wants to study film and sharpen her editing skills. At first, she thought she might want to head to a school outside of Cleveland, but then realized she'd rather stay and give back to the city she grew up in.

“I want to show the goodness, like the good things that happened in Cleveland because of a lot of bad things… that do happen," she said. "I want to show a point of view like this is Cleveland. It's not all bad.”

Finding the right school was important for her, but figuring out how to pay for it was a problem.

“I wasn't gonna go to college if I would have to like pay student loans,” she said.

It took her time to figure out what to do, but hearing about Say Yes Cleveland giving students like her money to go to school changed everything. Brown-Hagwood is not alone. As many consider what their next move will be, one thing is for sure, they won't have to do it alone.

Two-thousand children attended a recent college fair where at least 75 colleges were represented. Say Yes Cleveland officials say it's the first fair where just about every kid they talked to knew about the program and what it has to offer. One-thousand students completed the Say Yes scholarship application in October. The Cleveland Metropolitan School District is on track to outpace the number of applicants it initially had at the opening of the scholarship process.