Four Latino students with few economic resources but brilliant academic performances received the opportunity of a lifetime in the form of $100,000 scholarships to begin their university studies.

Each of the four young people will receive an annual disbursement of $25,000 over four years through the RMHC/HACER Scholarship Program , an initiative of Global Ronald McDonald House Charities, which is supported by McDonald's Corporation.

"My mother didn't study a profession and has always insisted 'don't do like I did. You have to go to the university,'" said Brigitte Morales of Miami, one of the four scholarship recipients.

"That made me make myself a proposal ever since I was in middle school: being the best student at the high school I went to," she added.

And Brigitte fully achieved her goal, maintaining the best grade point average in her school, Miami Central Park, a feat that now has her bound for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"I was also accepted at Princeton and Stanford, but I preferred MIT for my chemical engineering studies," the daughter of Cuban immigrants told Efe, adding that without the scholarship she would not have been able to go to MIT.

Maira Mercado will be the first in her family to attend college. With a grade point average of 4.4, she graduated first in her class of 412 at Arlington High School in Riverside, California.

"There is great need in the world and it would be something marvelous to be able to make others smile. We're all alike and we should help each other," said Maira, who devotes much of her time to communities activities at her church and with other organizations.

As a member of the Future Business Leaders of America, the young Latina from southern California could participate in national leadership competitions and prepare herself to achieve her professional dream: being the CEO of an important corporation.

This fall, at California's Claremont McKenna College, she will begin studying economics and mathematics thanks to the RMHC/HACER scholarship, an important step on the road to achieving her dream.

When Samuel Cruz came to the United States he had to work hard to learn English and be able to use it at a level where he could compete with his schoolmates who were born in this country.

"We'll experience suffering, difficulties, poverty and adversity but this is the way God polishes the roughness of our character," said the young Colombian immigrant, who graduated with honors from Union Hill High School in Union City, New Jersey, and with the help of this program will attend Ramapo College in New Jersey to study biochemistry and genetics.

Brian A. Campos is the fourth of the young people receiving the McDonald's scholarship this year. A recend graduate of Hunter College in New York, a high school for intellectually and academically gifted students, Brian will attend Yale where he wants to study biomedical engineering.

After that, he says he wants to specialize in neurology at Harvard Medical School.

As the only Latino student in his class, Brian acknowledges that there needs to be a greater Hispanic presence in higher education and intends to take advantage of his abilities "to fight for the advance of the Hispanic community" in this country.

"Education has shown itself to be the key for achieving all the things I want for my family and for myself," said the multi-faceted young man, who wants to help his community through medicine.

"We know there are a lot of talented students in our community who are unable to attend college because of financial constraints," Cristina Vilella, director of marketing for McDonald's USA, said in a statement announcing the 2008 scholarship recipients.

"We want to support them financially so they can stay focused on their education," she said.

In 1985, Richard Castro, a McDonald's franchise owner in El Paso, Texas, as part of his personal commitment to help the community, got many of his fellow franchisees together, along with McDonald's Corporation, and obtained the support of Global Ronald McDonald House Charities to set up the scholarship program.