Say goodbye to student loans.
A $1 million lottery win for Ashley Ploneis, 20, of Selden, L.I., has wiped the financial slate clean for the information technology student, clearing the way for her to go to school debt-free.
“I’m just glad I won’t have to take out any loans,” she said yesterday as she was awarded her prize. “I am so grateful for that. And I am also very happy for my parents because they won’t have to struggle with my tuition.”
Ploneis struck it rich about two weeks ago when she bought a $5 High Stakes Blackjack scratch-off ticket at Sue’s Cardsmart in Selden. She said it was 10th ticket she had ever bought.
But she was riding a hot streak because the last one she purchased – a Subway Series scratch-off ticket for her dad – won the family $500 a few months earlier.
She took the card to her car parked outside and began scratching off each of the games, which pit your hand against a dealer. She lost the first seven, but when she got to the eighth and final game, she won.
When she scratched off the prize box, she was stunned.
“I just couldn’t believe it. I kept looking at it to make sure it was real. I was sitting there in the parking lot by myself and I realized I had won $1 million,” she said.
First she called her boyfriend, who didn’t believe her. She wanted to call her parents, but they were away on a cruise and couldn’t be reached. When they came back, the first thing her father asked was to see the ticket. He wanted to be sure it was real, she said.
Ploneis will be given $50,000 a year over 20 years or approximately $35,000 after taxes, New York State Lottery Director Nancy Palumbo said.
The Suffolk County Community College grad will now attend a college in Pittsburgh to get a bachelor’s degree in information technology with a minor in business without creating a financial burden for her and her family.
“It was definitely a concern,” said her father, Vincent. “We had money for our retirement, but we probably would have had to dip into that. Now we don’t have to.”
Ploneis said she had only splurged on a new pair of tennis shoes since winning, but planned to take her parents to Italy once she graduates. She has no plans to squander the cash on big-ticket items, she said, and will invest the rest. Palumbo said Ploneis’ case is another example of how the state lottery supports education.
“The fact that Ashley will use her money to help finance her college education reinforces the fact that Lottery revenues support education, whether it’s through scholarships to deserving students, direct aid to education or a winning Lottery ticket,” she said.
New York Lottery has generated more than $29 billion in revenue for education in the state, including a record $2.2 billion in 2005-2006.