When Kendra Gros is not styling a bride’s or celebrity’s hair, she might be ripping up a motocross track, training a horse, riding a polo pony, teaching salsa or tango, or posing for photos at a special event.
Even with all this nonstop activity, however, the Aspen native says something was missing. She’d graduated from Yampah Mountain High School in Glenwood Springs and had taken a few classes from Colorado Mountain College back then, but hadn’t taken her education further.
So when CMC offered its Finish What You Started tuition discount program in the fall of 2016 to celebrate the college’s 50th anniversary, Kendra was all in. The program offers 50 percent off tuition to qualified students who are returning to finish their first degree – and Kendra qualified.
Now along with dressing up to go on the town, or dressing down to ride motorcycles or horses, Kendra’s been hitting the books and working toward earning her associate degree at Colorado Mountain College Aspen.
“It’s really motivating,” she says, about the reduced tuition and the opportunity to get a degree right in Aspen. “And I can still work and go to school.”
She says she especially likes her classes in modern literature, humanities and art. And for Kendra, it’s education for education’s sake. “I’m not as concerned about what I get a degree in,” she says. “I’m just getting my degree.”
