UNH Today

Sometimes, when more eloquent words fail, all you can muster is a lot of stunned looks and some exclamations of disbelief — "Wow! ... What? … Wait, are you serious?" That’s the reaction Matteo Gal ’28 had when he learned he was the latest recipient of the Granite State Development Corporation’s (GSDC) scholarship.

Full sentences may not have flowed, but the gratitude quickly did.

“This is like a dream; it’s a lot of weight off my shoulders. I’m so thankful,” says Gal.

That weight lifted was a heavy one. This scholarship means the rest of Gal’s college career at UNH will be paid for: tuition, room and board, housing and any other mandatory fees for the next three years.

Now in its sixth year, the scholarship  was created with a generous gift from GSDC, a nonprofit lending organization that specializes in the SBA 504 Loan Program, helping small businesses throughout New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts.

The scholarship is awarded every year to a student in either the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics, the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture, or the College of Liberal Arts. Recipients are chosen based on both merit and financial need, and only certain majors are eligible — those that have an academic area of study that aligns with the work of GSDC. In Paul College, that means economics or finance majors.

“The students that UNH chooses as the Granite State Development Scholars each year are excellent; they are always students of great character, they’re smart and they are hard workers,” says GSDC President and CEO Steve Aldrich, himself a proud UNH Wildcat, class of 1988. “Congratulations to Matteo; the team at Granite State Development Corp. look forward to meeting him soon and getting to know him over these next three years.”

And it’s more than just the financial support. Many of the past recipients have interned with GSDC, building professional relationships as undergrads that last into their post-grad careers.

For Gal's family, who live in Dover, the news was a very welcome surprise.

“This scholarship is a blessing to our family,” says Matteo’s mother, Rafaela, noting that she and husband, Adilson, have two daughters; the oldest, Giulia, will be starting college soon. Says Rafaela, “This is a great example to her" of what can happen when a student’s hard work meets a donor’s kindness. “This came like a blessing.”

Both parents agree this will set her son up for his future successes.

“Most importantly this will allow Matteo to focus on his studies and continue to do great academically and live on campus and enjoy his college experience, without having the stress of paying off student loans later on,” she says.

It’s the idea of setting students up for a debt-free future that the GSDC scholarship founders were thinking about when they created this fund at UNH.

The organization has long been generous to UNH and other schools, regularly awarding smaller scholarships of roughly $2,500 to students. It was when one of those previous recipients shared how much that money had helped him that GSDC leadership and staff were moved to act — that relatively small scholarship had a major impact on that student’s life. What could an even larger scholarship do?

Those emotions drove the organization to work with the UNH Foundation to create the scholarship, one of just a handful of “full-ride” scholarships awarded each year, just before the pandemic hit, and need among New Hampshire students grew even greater.

Before receiving the GSDC scholarship, the Gals were making plans for Matteo to come back home rather than live in the dorms. He had a great freshman year, living in Jessie Doe Hall, but financially, says Rafaela, it just didn’t make sense for him to pay for housing when they live so close.

But thanks to the scholarship, he’ll be back on campus this fall.

“Matteo has always been a good student; dedicated, smart, responsible — and he did it all with a great sense of humor,” says Rafaela. Not to imply he didn’t take his studies seriously. There was a time when he wasn’t happy with how he was doing in high school, and he worked to turn it around.

He decided to study economics at UNH after taking a class on the subject in high school that he really enjoyed, and doing a summer economics program at Bryant University in Rhode Island. His career goals, he says, are to work in a role that connects economics to environmentalism, working to find business solutions that make good environmental sense and good economic sense, too.

For now, the family is thankful for the GSDC’s philanthropy, and looking forward to the rest of Matteo’s UNH career.

“I hope he is successful in everything he tries to do, and continues doing it by being Matteo — humble, happy and true to himself,” says Rafaela.

Read more about the Granite State Development Corporation’s impact and what GSDC Scholars are up to in the next UNH Magazine, coming this September.