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37 fans got a life-changing surprise from Nicki Minaj: lots of money for school.

Nicki Minaj is a lot of things — rapper, business mogul, and now, the patron saint of cash-strapped students.

Minaj just announced the winners of her Student of the Game contest, all of whom will receive financial assistance for school straight from the "Chun-Li" singer herself.

After narrowing down finalists, Minaj chose 37 people to support — with money going toward everything from tuition to equipment to helping pay for some students' AP tests and get others back into school (because you know the FAFSA isn't all it's cracked up to be).

The reactions to her act of generosity were more than just a little enthusiastic.

Here's just a selection of responses to the announcement:

And a special congrats to this person, who said they were winning something for the first time in their life and really hitting that jackpot:

How did this begin? In May 2017, a fan asked Minaj to pay for his tuition, and it started a movement.

Minaj was promoting a contest for a fan to join her at an awards show at the time. And after she let it be known that she could fly anyone from anywhere to hang out with her, one fan hit her with an important question: Could you help me with my tuition payment instead?

The tweet was (mostly) a joke, but Minaj not only paid the fan's tuition — after she verified he was picking up straight A's — but started paying off other fans' tuitions, too. She helped more than a dozen students at that time.

Imagine making a joke and getting that phone call.

And Minaj isn't done yet. She's said she's going to keep the scholarship running — hopefully until there are no applicants left or she runs out of money.

The artist has always been outspoken about the importance of education. She's been preaching at her fans to stay in school since the beginning, sometimes even telling them to skip her concert if the choice was between watching her perform and planting their butts firmly into their chairs for first period.

Here's Minaj yelling at her stans to stay in school from a moving vehicle:

And at a 2012 concert in Denmark, Minaj asked "Where my girls in school at?" "Don't you drop out of schools, barbs, OK?" she implored.

The scholarship proves that she's not just paying lip service to the message. I can't wait until a college names an entire wing after her.

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Powerful photos from a South African university riot.

They call it a "black tax."

For black South Africans, it means that if you have a job, some of your earnings should go to your struggling family.

It's not a government-instituted fee, but more of a deeply entrenched cultural responsibility set upon young black citizens.

Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images.

This idea of paying it forward is certainly well-meaning, but it can trap young people in a discouraging cycle of poverty. Many are happy to support their families but often have to set aside their personal ambitions to do so.

Black students in South Africa see one opportunity to break out of the vicious cycle of poverty: education.

So when universities announced that tuition fees would continue to rise ... this happened.

Photo by Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images.

This is a protest outside the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, locally referred to as "Wits."

Photo by Mujahid Safodien/AFP/Getty Images.

Things turned violent, and after the alleged harassment of university staff members, the police were deployed to the scene, where they used tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun grenades against the protesters.

Photo by Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images.

Cars were flipped, rocks thrown, fists swung, and at least two students were arrested.

Photo by John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images.

What you're seeing isn't just a riot — it's the result of an economic pressure cooker and decades of systematic oppression.

Less than 30 years ago, South Africa lived under apartheid — a set of laws and systems that kept black South Africans physically separated from whites.

Photo by Keystone/Getty Images.

Apartheid ended in the 1990s under Nelson Mandela, but racial tensions and inequities didn't just disappear. In fact, racial economic disparity has grown since the end of apartheid, and black income has nearly flat-lined.

Add to that the notion that education may soon become financially inaccessible to many, and the result is a palpable anger.

Photo by Mujahid Safodien/AFP/Getty Images.

Americans know some of this pressure, too, because many young people are buried in student loans, and tens of millions graduate with debt.

In the U.S., students have to lean heavily on government loans to attend college. Then they graduate with, on average, $35,000 in debt and little to no job opportunities. Student debt is the single largest debt in America, and it's still growing.

There's no excuse for violence, but the anger is understandable.

Photo by Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images.

There have been several proposed solutions to student debt, and it's been one of the many key issues discussed in the 2016 presidential election.

Plans range from forgiving loans to lowering interest rates to even making tuition-free colleges. All of those proposals have pros and cons, but one thing is clear: A college education is now practically necessary for success in our society, and something needs to be done to make it affordable.

A student debt protest in California in 2012. Photo by David McNew/Getty Images.

After that, economic growth needs to continue so the millions of people who graduate college every year have somewhere to take their skills and a feasible economic ladder to climb.

You can only put so much financial burden on young people while simultaneously cutting opportunity before something boils over.

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This tiny rural community pledged to send all its graduates to higher education.

Higher education is a promise worth keeping.

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Starbucks Upstanders

In 2009, the adults of Baldwin, Michigan, made a promise to their kids, the students at Baldwin Community Schools.

If you studied hard and applied for higher education, they’d give you $5,000 a year for four years to make sure you got to go.

The Baldwin Promise was inspired by a similar promise made by the people of Kalamazoo, Michigan, to their kids in 2005. Along with 10 other regions in the Michigan Promise Zone, Baldwin provides up to $20,000 in academic funds for students who want to pursue further schooling. The money can be used at any public university or community or private college in the state of Michigan. All students need in order to qualify is to live in Baldwin from ninth grade until graduation, to be accepted at a higher learning institution, and to qualify for Pell grants. The Baldwin Promise makes up the difference.

Many of the students at Baldwin High School don't have a lot of options after graduation — that's where the Baldwin Promise comes in and provides college scholarships for those in need. A Starbucks original series.

Posted by Upworthy on Thursday, September 15, 2016

For students here, this promise means everything. Particularly when the odds seem stacked against them.

Baldwin, like many small rural areas in the Midwest, is very poor.

There’s no manufacturing and very few job opportunities. According to the most recent Census data, 29.2% of the people in Lake County (where Baldwin is) live below the poverty level; it's among the highest in all of Michigan. For young people, the statistics are even less encouraging. In 2012, 53.4% of children in Lake County lived in poverty with 93.4% of the school district’s 524 students qualifying for free or reduced-price school lunches. In this kind of environment, kids can often think that the world of higher education is far beyond their reach.

Shaddarius Scott is graduating from Baldwin Community Schools this year and headed to college in the fall. Growing up homeless, her future is one she’d never have imagined for herself.

"College was not even a thought in my mind. I was too busy worrying about the next meal and not the next step in life. With an opportunity like the Baldwin Promise, I was able to afford something that was not there for me."

Images via Starbucks.

"When you grow up in an environment where you’re told, 'You can’t be anything, you can’t afford to be anything' — to go from that to 'You can be whatever you want to be,' it’s like, 'Whoa, really?'"

As Baldwin graduates start to thrive, the Baldwin Promise has started to change the way this school district thinks about education at every level.

Now, from kindergarten onward, they prepare their students for what happens after graduation. The College Access Center helps students and parents with whatever they need — from filling out funding applications to researching schools to choosing where to go. They also organize the school’s annual Decision Day, when seniors stand in front of a cheering crowd of friends, family, and community members to announce where they’ve decided to go for higher education.

Makaylah George is one of the students in Baldwin’s graduating class this year. She applied to 13 colleges and universities. Standing in her yellow "accepted" T-shirt, she beamed. "I was accepted to all 13 of them."

Seeing these children succeed is the biggest reward for the community members who’ve invested in the Baldwin Promise.

Ellen Kerans was part of the team that came up with the Baldwin Promise. She remembers the enthusiasm people had during their early days of fundraising. "We had some grandparents say, 'I can only give $20 a month; is that enough?' and we would say 'Oh my gosh, that is more than enough.'" Within just a few months, they’d raised $160,000 — $40,000 more than their original goal.

"We didn’t anticipate the sort of grassroots support that we got. These were not people who had a lot of means, but [they] had a lot of vision."

In every way, the Baldwin Promise is succeeding.

In its first year, 14 students in the 23-person graduating class enrolled in college, up from just eight the year before. Now a full 50% of students who graduate high school in Baldwin enroll in higher education institutions within one year. That's a 13% increase from before the program began.

Getting through college is still demanding — financially, psychologically, and academically — and it’ll still be a few years before stats on college completion are available. In the meantime, there’s one more remarkable statistic worth sharing. It’s 95.3%: the percent of Baldwin parents who believe their kids will attend college because of this program.

That’s real hope — and a promise worth keeping.

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