College Boasts of Its Youngest Graduate Ever

Any parent would be bursting with pride at their child earning a college diploma. For the Perales family, that pride at Alisa Perales' graduation has been taken up a notch, for one standout reason: The student from San Bernardino, California, is only 10 years old. Crafton Hills College says in a release that Alisa will actually be 11 by the time she walks across that commencement stage, but that still makes her the youngest person ever to graduate from the community college in Yucaipa.

Alisa will walk away with two associate degrees—one in various sciences, the other in math, with an ending GPA "close" to a 4.0—and the school notes that if she'd stuck around for one more semester, she likely could've earned two more, in physics and computer science. Alisa, a homeschooled student who started at Crafton Hills in the spring of 2023 at the age of 8, had already mastered her ABCs and numbers by the time she was 1, and her dad, Rafael Perales, says she kept learning at breakneck speed from there. "She has been a little different her whole life, but I have always taught her that there's nothing out there that you're not capable of understanding," he says.

Sandra Ruiz, a computer science instructor at the school, says she remembers the day Alisa first walked into her classroom, accompanied by her dad, and how Ruiz thought it was Perales who was her student, not his young daughter. "I thought he was in need of a babysitter," Ruiz tells the Los Angeles Times. "It turned out she was quite an amazing student who brought a level of focus and creativity that made her stand out as much as her age."

story continues below

Alisa has even used her fast-gathered knowledge to file a lawsuit: After taking a poli-sci course, she decided to lodge a federal complaint against the state and federal governments arguing that, because she'd amassed the same knowledge in school as other kids over the age of 18 who are eligible to vote, she should be allowed to vote as well (she didn't win the case). Looking forward, Alisa says she hopes to transfer to Stanford, per KABC, with a possible career down the road in computer science, specifically the AI tech industry. "She's only getting started," her dad tells the outlet. (More uplifting news stories.)