"Tauranga man Maurice Melligan has defied the odds," The Bay of Plenty Times reports this week.
The article continues:
He had a troubled childhood and started partying at 15. A year later he dropped out of school.
At the time, he was using social media to throw big parties at his Gate Pa home.
Hundreds of attendees would crowd his parents' house and spill out on to the streets - police were often called to disperse the partygoers.
He accumulated $20,000 worth of debt from loans and credit cards.
And now he has graduated from university - the first in his family to do so.
Read more at The Bay of Plenty Times.
Watch a video about Mormons and education: