The dad who secretly earned a degree alongside his daughter

Mike Loven had done the maths on his own life and decided it was not too late. A staffing company owner from Machesney Park in Illinois, he had spent years carrying his family while his daughter Taleigh worked toward her own degree. In 2016, at 46, he quietly enrolled at Grand Canyon University, the same university Taleigh was attending, and told almost no one.

For the next few years he hid it in plain sight. When he disappeared to study, the family assumed he was buried in work. “They thought I was working on a spreadsheet for work,” he said, “when in reality I was in an accounting class.” He kept the grades to himself too, which is its own kind of restraint, because they were remarkable: a bachelor’s in finance and economics finished with a 3.99 grade point average.

The reveal came at graduation. As Taleigh celebrated earning her own degree in psychology, her dad walked in wearing a cap and gown that matched hers. The room took a second to understand what it was seeing. The man who had quietly held everything together had also, in the cracks of his days, gone back to school and very nearly aced it.

There is a particular kind of girl dad lesson in this one, and it is not really about a diploma. It is about a daughter watching her father model, without a word of fuss, that effort compounds and that the door to starting again is never actually locked. He could have told her that. Instead he showed her, and let the cap and gown do the talking.

We celebrate Mike Loven because the quietest example is often the loudest, and his daughter will carry this one for life.

Who is Mike Loven?

Mike Loven is one of the girl dads celebrated on girl.dad, based in Machesney Park, Illinois. The short version: He carried his family for years, then showed his daughter it is never too late to start.

What kind of story is this?

girl.dad files it under Education, published 15 June 2026.