 Nineteen-year-old Alexis Breonna Felix feared her short time at BU was coming to an end when she realized she couldn't pay for the rest of this year's tuition. But when she decided to turn to crowdfunding to raise money, her future in Boston began to look a lot brighter. I thought it would be a really great resource and I, you know, I talked about it with my best friend and I talked about it with my mom, so I had some reservations about not doing it, but it ended up being a blessing, like the biggest blessing of the year. Through a website called GoFundMe, Alexis was able to ask for donations to help her pay for her spring semester. Within 27 hours, she had surpassed her goal of $5,000. I shared my link on Facebook. I think I personally shared it only twice and from there it was shared 400 and something times. Besides excelling academically, Alexis is also the captain of a multi-cultural dance team called Music. One teammate describes why she donated. We have similar financial circumstances and so she's a really dear friend of mine. So I donated some money to her fund and little by little it started building up and it was just, she passed her goal and I was pretty shocked. I was like, whoa, it was amazing, it was something really amazing. Although students in similar situations often turn to BU's financial aid offices for help, there is only a limited number of resources they can be provided with. I actually had some issues with BU financial aid. I mean, obviously when I thought I was going to have to leave, I was in the financial aid office all the time. I was brought to tears quite a few times and I think what was most frustrating for me when dealing with financial aid was that there was one, there were actually a couple times when they told me I was out of options. She was later found out on her own about a cooperative house on campus for low-income women where she would only have to pay a few hundred dollars for rent and food each month. I wish someone would have told me that that existed earlier because that would have knocked off thousands from my housing bill and from my tuition bill in general. Boston University's financial assistance offers many types of aid, from loans to scholarships and grants, but when asked to comment, they said they would be unable to participate in an interview. For BU News Service, I'm Kami Wood.