This study documents the aspirations and apprehensions of youth as they complete secondary schooling in Kakuma Refugee Camp. Navigating contradictory discourses about the value of education, school-leavers approach postsecondary opportunities with attention to social status hierarchies, economic viability, and collective expectations for nation-building goals. This work contributes to understandings of formal education interacting with culturally bounded expectations for normative adulthood, examining how youth respond when they are unable to adhere to a linear trajectory of success. I argue that foregrounding democratic purposes of schooling in exile can expand conceptions of nation-building and successful adulthood, opening and de-stigmatizing multiple future pathways.