09/07/2025
Georgetown University Senior, Axel Abrica, grew up
in a low-income community....He wanted to help his neighbors and his parents, three siblings and grandmother.
Years later, as he prepares to graduate from Georgetown and begin a job at one of DC’s top consulting firms, he still wants to help. And he found an unlikely way to do so: math.
Abrica was always good with numbers — “that’s the one thing academically I could do all day,” he said.
His high school didn’t offer Calculus II, so he taught it to himself and passed the AP exam.
Abrica knew he wanted to study math in college, and he thought Georgetown would offer him a way to use it to help people. He just had to figure out how.
“I wanted to find a way to use math in a way that’s more impactful to people instead of solving proofs all day,” he said.
His first year, he found an opportunity. As the director of socioeconomic advocacy for Georgetown’s student government, he began advocating for students who would be homeless without summer housing. He tallied the numbers and presented them to Georgetown’s administration. He then worked with Student Affairs and other university departments and students to implement the university’s ongoing Bridge Housing Program, which provides housing support during winter and summer breaks.
His junior year, he helped fellow Hoyas tackle microeconomics as a teaching assistant, including serving as a head TA, a role previously only filled by graduate students.
“When I was taking Principles in Micro, I was in shambles,” Abrica said. “As a first-generation student, that was rough. So I wanted to provide [help] for other students like me.”
Later that same year, he took Topics, Competition and Regulation with Professor Marius Schwartz, and something clicked. He found the field of antitrust could blend his passion for economics and impact.
“I think it was a combination of structural factors of me growing up in poverty and seeing how unfairly people can be treated,” he said. “Coming to Georgetown, I saw how numbers and real theories can help alleviate that.”
Schwartz, a first-generation college graduate who previously served as chief economist for the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, saw how hard Abrica worked and how hard he worked to help others.
“He’s been one of the most gratifying students I’ve had in 40 years at Georgetown,” he said. “He would occasionally have to go back to help [his family], and how well he did despite that is even more impressive.”
Axel Abrica grew up working in the fields. Now, as a first-generation college graduate, he's determined to give back to his community.
