Mother and Daughter Who Fled Syrian Civil War Graduate College Together

These women put a new spin on the notion of "like mother, like daughter" when they both received diplomas with honors from a New Jersey college on Wednesday.

And if that weren't enough, Syrian refugees Stani Habji, 52, and daughter Racha Ahmad, 26, were joined at the commencement ceremony by their family's long-absent patriarch.

Bassam Ahmad finally arrived in the U.S. two weeks ago after staying behind in their war-torn native country to care for his ailing father.

Racha Ahmad, who was chosen to be William Paterson University's undergraduate student speaker, credited her mother with inspiring her to pursue a college degree after they and her three younger siblings fled the Syrian civil war in 2014.

“Taking this journey with my mom has been special for both of us,” she said during her speech at Newark's Prudential Center.

“My mother and I were taking on 12 to 16 credits a semester and held full-time jobs.

"My mother explained that by completing our studies and obtaining a bachelor’s degree, we would be able to find a good job and secure a better future," she added, according to the school's official account.

Racha Ahmad graduated in January with a degree in English literature and political science and told NorthJersey.com she planned to earn a master's degree in public policy from WPU with the goal of landing a U.S. government job in foreign affairs.

Habji, who earned a degree in accounting, already has a job as an accountant for a printing company.

"Believe it or not, if someone told me 10 or 15 years ago this was going to happen, I never would believe it — to go to a new country, start a new life, apply to college and graduate with my daughter,” she told NorthJersey.com.

During Wednesday's keynote address, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy praised the Class of 2023 for having "filled me with hope in our future" by persevering in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, the war in Ukraine and America's bitter political divide.

“Many of you are the first in your families to go to college. Many of you are immigrants or the children of immigrants. And many of you worked your way through school – holding down jobs and supporting your families, while also somehow finding the time to study and go to class,” he said.

“In normal circumstances, that alone would be an incredible achievement, but the last few years have not been normal."

Murphy added: "Never forget you have that Jersey spirit in you. That means we are scrappy, we never give up and there is nothing we cannot achieve when we set our mind to it.”