Jermiron Morris drove a truck for a living but wanted to own his own business, so he got a degree from City Colleges of Chicago and then won a scholarship to the Illinois Institute of Technology.



Morris, 36, was returning to the campus early Thursday when an acquaintance, also a student at the South Side school, beat him to death near the Keating Sports Center in the Bronzeville neighborhood, authorities said. The other student, 43, was taken into custody at the scene.



"(Morris) was very ambitious and a person who yearned to mentor young men. He was a great guy," said Kimberly Tubbs, who dated him for eight years. "He was not only striving for himself, but also his family. He wanted people to be proud of him and he wanted to reach back and help other young men find their way in life."



He was found around 5 a.m. in a parking lot in the 3000 block of South Wabash Avenue after police got a call of a battery, said Officer Ana Pacheco, a Chicago police spokeswoman.



Morris was on the ground, bleeding from his face, Pacheco said. He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, she said.



Police said Morris and the other student had been together earlier in the evening. The two got into an argument in the parking lot, and the older man apparently beat Morris with a tree branch, police said.



Morris was an undergraduate at IIT majoring in industrial technology and management, according to the school's website. He entered the school in 2013 after working as a trucker and earning an associate's degree in logistics at Richard J. Daley College in Chicago.



Morris received a scholarship under a program that offers help to community college students. In 2014, Morris received a scholarship from IIT to study in Shanghai.



"He wanted more in life and wanted to learn the logistics of his trade so he could own his own business," Tubbs said. "He wanted to get involved in programs to show young black men there's a better way to live."