A Louisiana high school senior was awarded a staggering amount of scholarships and was accepted to at least 170 colleges he applied to with more acceptance letters rolling in every day.

Dennis Barnes hopes to break the current record for most scholarships ever awarded, which currently sits at $9.4 million. The 16-year-old senior has been offered more than $9 million in scholarships so far. “My goal is to reach $10 million,” Barnes told the local station WWL-TV, per The Daily Mail. 

The senior said he intends to pursue a dual degree in computer science and criminal justice. He hasn’t yet decided on which college to attend but will announce his decision before graduating from International High School of New Orleans.

Barnes has a GPA of 4.98 and is a member of the National Honor Society. He’s also fluent in Spanish. He already began his pursuit of higher education by taking college credits at the Southern University at New Orleans.

“I submitted college applications in August, with an eye on raising the bar high for college admissions. Decision letters were an overflow in my mailbox and hundreds of scholarship offers,” he told WWL.

“I will say I haven’t always been a straight-A student. I’ve always been devoted to getting my school work done and get good grades like the average child,” Barnes said of his educational background.

“It’s not normal, I know it’s not of course, but I started at someplace. There’s a starting point for everything. I started and then realized where I was going and as I realized the path I was heading down, I rolled my momentum and I ended up farther than I ever thought I would’ve been,” he said.

Barnes told USA Today that as of Tuesday, he had been accepted to 170 schools, but that number keeps growing. Many institutions offered him a full ride to attend. “I am still getting letters. Decision letters were an overflow in my mailbox,” Barnes told the outlet during a phone interview. “I’m proud of myself. I’m a black man and you don’t find that too often in the black community. It stands out.”

His mother, Reba Barnes, told the news station she’s not surprised by her son’s success.

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“'[He] has been like this since a baby. He’s always been very inquisitive, always on top of everything,” she said. “If he had a field trip, he would put the paper right in front of me, ‘Mama, sign this.’ I never had to ask him for the report card. He’s always been diligent and purposeful in everything he does.”

Barnes told CNN that his faith is also important to him. 

“I am a God-fearing young man; I keep God first,” he said. He offered advice to other students looking to succeed.

“If you keep your school, your education a priority and keep God in the mix, then you are definitely going to be successful no matter what you do,” the student said.

The current scholarship money record was set by Normandie Cormier in 2019. She was accepted into 139 colleges after applying with the Common App and the Common Black College App, which allows students to apply to hundreds of schools simultaneously. 

Cormier is currently pursuing a master’s degree at Louisiana State University, the publication noted.

With President Joe Biden, 80, announcing his plans to run for re-election, many critics — including Democrats — have been talking around the edges. He’s not as mentally strong as he once was, they say quietly.

But GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley didn’t mince words on Wednesday when she predicted Biden wouldn’t live until the end of a second term should he win.

“I think we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden, you really are counting on a President [Kamala] Harris,” the former South Carolina governor said in an interview on the Fox News show “America Reports.”

“Because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely,” she told hosts Sandra Smith and John Roberts.

Haley, 51, has called for mandatory “mental competency tests” for politicians older than 75, which would include former President Donald Trump.

If Biden wins re-election in 2024, he’d serve until 2029, when he would be 86. But should he pass away during his term — or step aside after two years — that could open the door for Vice President Kamala Harris to serve as many as 10 years in office.

Should Biden serve less than half of a second term, Harris could run only once and serve one four-year term, according to the tenets of the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. But if he served half his term, she could run at the top of the ticket twice.

On Tuesday, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre if Biden plans to serve a full second term.

“That’s something for him to decide,” she said. “I’m just not going to get ahead of the president.”

She was apparently told to walk that back because Jean-Pierre later took to Twitter to say: “As you know, we take following the law seriously. So I wanted to be sure that I didn’t go into 2024 more than is appropriate under the law. But I can confirm that if reelected, @POTUS would serve all 8 years.”

As you know, we take following the law seriously. So I wanted to be sure that I didn't go into 2024 more than is appropriate under the law. But I can confirm that if re-elected, @POTUS would serve all 8 years. https://t.co/n9OfMV4D1Y

— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) April 25, 2023

Another Republican presidential candidate says Biden running for re-election is tantamount to elder abuse — and claims that Biden isn’t really running the show, anyway.

“It’s a myth that Joe Biden is actually running for president. He’s not,” entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said Monday on Fox News. “It’s just the managerial class using Joe Biden as a front to advance its own agenda. To them Biden’s cognitive impairment isn’t a bug. It’s a feature.”

“This is how the managerial class crushes everyday citizens – not with a bang, but with a whimper,” he said.

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Ramaswamy was harsh, calling Biden a “hollowed-out husk.”

“The administrative state more effectively controls its puppets when they are hollowed-out husks of themselves. The fact that it’s elder abuse is just a cost of doing business for Biden’s handlers. It’s revealing that the DNC [Democratic National Committee] refuses to host primary debates this year; they’re spitting in the face of their grassroots base.”

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.