While living in Guayaquil, Correa was highly involved in the Boy Scout program. At the age of 17, his family faced financial hardship, but a family friend was able to pay for him to be educated at an elite local school, where he excelled. During his secondary studies he was president of the Lasallian Student Cultural Association ("ACEL" in Spanish). Correa then obtained a scholarship to study at the Catholic University of Santiago de Guayaquil (UCSG), a private higher education institution in Guayaquil, Ecuador, where he obtained an undergraduate degree in economics in 1987.