The Fabulous Fable of Fabiola’s Scholarship Fund

While Rich Californians Paid Bribes to Get Their Kids Into College, a Struggling Sophomore Shares Her Small Windfall

This spring—as federal prosecutors announced a major college admissions scandal that had ensnared wealthy movie stars and prominent Californians, who paid millions in bribes to get their kids into elite universities—a poor kid from a poor California town faced her own dilemma about money and universities: How could she use her own meager bank account to help others go to college?

Fabiola Moreno Ruelas, an 18-year-old from the Salinas Valley town of Gonzales, was about to become California’s most unlikely philanthropist. She had not had a glittering, Carnegie-style (or even Kardashian-style) …