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Mom and daughter graduate college together 40 years after mom started

Mother and daughter push each other to graduate
Posted at 7:35 PM, May 11, 2018
and last updated 2018-05-11 19:35:13-04

Mother and daughter, Linda and Becky Dancer, graduated together spring 2018 from Cleary University, more than 40 years after Linda began her degree. The family duo didn't set out to go to college together but when Linda's husband passed away in 2014 of a heart attack.

“Everything was going good. Dan had his own business. I was just doing what I do best with secretarial jobs and then he passed away. So the whole world changed at that point," Linda Dancer said.
 
Since her current salary couldn't cover both her and her daughter she decided to go back to school 
 
“So after 40 years I went back and finished what I started," Linda Dancer said. 
 
But this time she wasn't alone. Both Linda and her daughter enrolled in Clearly University. After two years of hard work they graduated together in the spring. 
 
“I worked really hard for this," Linda Dancer said. "I didn’t work that hard 42 years ago. It was just going through the motions. I actually felt the emotions, lived the emotions, I did this program and I am so proud of myself.” 
 
“I do feel a little proud of myself that I finished this and it is nice to have a leg up on my siblings," Becky Dancer said. 
 
And maybe their family's educational journey isn't over. 
 
“I told her who knows maybe we will go get our masters together," Linda Dancer said. 
"Absolutely not," Becky Dancer said.