Brazilian society is marked by great social inequalities and the investments in education are pointed out as an important strategy to transforming this reality. Education is at the top of the agenda of many social programs and it is often regarded as one of the most important investments to be made on their children by low income families when it comes to pursuing better job opportunities as well as ascending on social status. Recently, there have been substantial advances in social policies which aim to enlarge the access to higher education. Since the access to Brazilian universities is on the increase, more and more philanthropic socioeconomic profile students are being admitted into higher education. In this study, we investigated the perspective of these youngsters on the role of the family in their educational project. Such investigation was carried out through an explanatory field research, which consisted in a semi-structured interview with eight undergraduate students with philanthropic profile. The interviews were analyzed according to the content analysis method, as proposed by Bardin (2011). Seven categories emerged from the subjects’ narratives: education as a family value; influences in the educational project; the family diploma; the students perception of social programs; obstacles and challenges during graduation; support networks to expanding horizons. Thus, the strong influence of family values, especially the value of education, in the shaping of an education project and its consequent choice in entering university stood out. Data suggest that, even though this project is an individual and autonomous choice, these students achievements are felt like collective accomplishments of their families. The participants evaluated inclusion social programs positively and they also highlighted the need to expanding the access to such programs. As to the main difficulties faced during their academic course, they underlined the long distances from their homes to university campus, the hardship in the transition from high school to higher education and financial permanence of scholarship students. The data indicated that when it comes to facing such difficulties, the subjects could count on support networks, including not only their parents and friends, but also institutional support. In addition to achieving higher education, taking an undergraduate course brings some other important meanings to these young students, for instance, the opening of new horizons, the possibility of rewarding their families and becoming a role model to their communities.