Max Romero

My journey wasn't a straight line at the time it felt like I hit every hurdle in the college system.

As a soon to be first generation college student, I was smart but unfocused. I graduated high school with a GPA in the low 3s but great SAT/ACT test scores. The college application process felt so overwhelming that I didn't even apply until after I graduated and ending up missing the first semester due to deadlines. I ended up going to my local community college HCC not because it was a strategic choice but because it was the only door I knew how to open at the time.

But that's where things changed, I found my footing and thrived. I got straight A's and joined the honor society, I became the Vice President of the Student Government Association and traveled to DC to advocate to keep interest rates low on federal student loans. Then I got my associate's degree and like many other students, I made my next choice based on the wrong metrics. Academic prestige and football fandom(I was always a long long gator fan)! I got into the University of Florida.

My family and I were ecstatic but the reality was a brutal mismatch. I wasn't prepared financially to support myself in another city and the fit was all wrong. I dropped out in the middle of my first semester, a combination of poor fit and my father's passing. It was a low point feeling like a huge waste of opportunity cost(Losing time, money, confidence and what I thought was a clear career plan once graduating from UF).

I eventually went back to school at my local state university USF, supporting myself again with grants, financial aid and scholarships. Prior to graduation I launched a business and then transitioned to Fintech and built a career scaling brokerage trading companies (like Webull & E*Trade) pre & post IPO, mastering complex operations, product, and technical systems that power massive platforms.

I'm building NXT because I don't want my children and future students to go through the struggles I went through. I've been on the other side and was able to come out with a degree, the overwhelmed applicant, the community college student, the transfer student, the dropout and the graduate. I learned how to navigate the system the hardest way possible. Now I'm using every operational and technical skill I have to make sure no student has to.