A 52-year-old man who spent most of his adult life on the streets and made a living selling a homeless magazine was accepted by the University of Cambridge.
Jeff Edwards dropped out of school at a young age. He had neither special qualifications nor ambitions. He ended up homeless in the city of Cambridge, after working for a while as a laborer.
Edwards is currently studying English literature after completing a course for adults who want to return to the desks to gain qualifications or continue their studies at university. "I was not thinking of applying to Cambridge. I did not think that the University of Cambridge would accept someone like me but my professor encouraged me to do so. "It's the first thing in my life that I'm proud of," he said.
The number of homeless people in Britain has exceeded 300.000 this year, an increase of 4% compared to last year.
Edwards said that while he was sleeping on the street, his job as a salesman for Big Issue, a magazine founded in 1991 to help the homeless cope, gave him "a little self-respect". But his dream was to study at Cambridge, which is considered one of the top universities in the world.
Source: TheToc