OKC 13-year-old boy makes history by graduating with associate degree from OCCC

This Oklahoma City teenager is following in his sister's footsteps by making college graduation history.

Elijah Muhammad, 13, graduated with his associate degree in cyber security from Oklahoma City Community College on Saturday, making him the school's youngest college graduate. Just a year ago, his sister Shania Muhammad had claimed that title when she graduated with an associate degree from both OCCC and Langston University at 14.

"It's just an amazing feeling," Elijah said.

The Muhammad family had even more to celebrate this month in addition to their youngest son's graduation. Shania, 15, graduated with her bachelor's degree in family consumer sciences from Langston University and is now the historically Black college's youngest bachelor's graduate on record.

She walked across the Langston stage the same day as her sister Rashay Muhammad, 21, and brother Elijah Muhammad Jr., 19, who were receiving their bachelor's and associate degrees, respectively.

Meanwhile, the fifth sibling, 17-year-old Elijah Muhammad — yes, they are all named for their father, Elijah Muhammad — is doing an early enlistment to the Army after graduating from the Thunderbird Youth Challenge military academy.

In the family: How this 14-year-old graduated with two associate degrees from two Oklahoma colleges

What happened when this OKC family valued education

How can one family claim so many accolades? The father, Elijah, said he and his wife cultivated a home where education was valued.

Looking at African Americans who have achieved greatness and become "household names," Elijah said he noticed that these were mostly athletes and entertainers. He didn't understand why more in the Black community aren't known for their scholarly achievements, but felt like this was something that could change.

So he became his children's cheerleader when it came to school.

"So I was like, You know what, every time they get an A, every time they do well, I'm gonna cheer for them," Muhammad said. "We're going to go out to eat, we're going to get ice cream, we're going to buy clothes. We're going to do everything based on that."

This seemed to really resonate with his children, he said. His oldest, Rashay, graduated high school from Epic Charter Schools at the age of 16 with a 4.0 GPA. Now, four out of five of the children ranging in age from 13 to 21 have college degrees.

All four hope to get their doctorate degrees like their mother, Atashia Muhammad, who is an assistant professor at Langston.

"One thing about education, it's not seasonal," the elder Elijah Muhammad said. "Basketball has a season, football has a season. Education is forever. Once you got it, you got it forever. It can never be taken away from you."

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'It's really not doing any work, I'm just really having fun'

As the youngest, Elijah watched as his siblings set an example of finishing high school and starting college at progressively younger ages.

He wasn't going to be left behind, so when he expressed interest in starting college, his dad signed him up for a six-month cyber security certificate program through Coursera, which he finished in three weeks.

"I'm really good at this, and I really enjoy it," he said. "It's really not doing any work, I'm just really having fun. That's what sparked my interest and made it way easier for me to do cyber security for my associate's degree."

Academics isn't the only thing he excels at. Elijah is also a 10-time wrestling champion and three-time state champion for the USA Wrestling League. He also loves to play video games.

In total for his associate, Elijah completed 12 hours at Langston and 52 hours at OCCC. But 37 of those OCCC hours were taken in one semester.

"He can just compute things at a very high rate," the elder Elijah Muhammad said. "We did not initially intend for him to take that many hours. What happened was, he kept knocking the classes out, and he was like 'Dad I'm bored, and I'm done.'"

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Shania Muhammad: Don't limit yourself because of your age

Shania's story of graduating with two associate degrees from two colleges on the same day, all at 14, first put the family on the map for academic excellence.

Shania's father, told The Oklahoman in 2022 that his youngest daughter always excelled in school. When school went online in 2020, Muhammad decided to fully embrace it and officially began homeschooling for Shania. She was in the seventh grade, but quickly accelerated to high school level curriculum.

Once Shania received an ACT score of 22 — above the national class of 2020 average ACT score of 20.6 — Muhammad said he knew his daughter was ready for college classes. He also said he's not sharing his children's story to encourage everyone to put their kids in college, but so people know it's at least possible to get started before the normal age.

Alongside her latest graduation, Shania received the Outstanding Graduate Senior award for Langston's Family Consumer Sciences Department and already has taken a semester of classes for her master's in business administration at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. She's the youngest African American graduate student at Southeastern.

She did it all, earning three college degrees in two-and-a-half years, with a 4.0 GPA, graduating with summa cum laude.

Though her brother now has her beat by a year, Shania is continuing to gain popularity on social media for her accomplishments. She is also working on publishing her book "Read, Write, Listen: 13 in College, How I Did It."

"I am so excited to show others that education is essential and that you don’t have to be limited to your age to expand your mind and the things you want to learn," Shania said on her Facebook page. "We are Black scholars although we have been told to be everything but that."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC teen is making history after getting an associate degree at 13