The Purchase-based Manhattanville College has joined a nationwide initiative that is aimed at helping Iraqi refugees complete their secondary education that has been cut short by war.

Mustafa Ahmed, 20, says his father worked for the Iraqi government until he started getting threats. Ahmed, who was an exchange student in the United States at the time, flew to Syria as his family fled Iraq.

Since then, Ahmed returned to the U.S. in hopes of finishing his education in Manhattanville College with the help of Andrew Courtney, a volunteer for the Iraqi Student Project.

"We believe that everybody should have an education," Courtney says.