Bill and Melinda Gates Sponsor Poor Kids to Go to College

Yesterday I watched the episode from 60 minutes on how the Gates Foundation is helping poor kids to go to college. Here's the link to this video - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-tuition-why-bill-and-melinda-gates-put-20000-students-through-college/.

I would not say that I am a staunch proponent of subsidies and I strongly believe in that people must work hard in order to address challenges that they face. Or, to put it more correctly, convert challenges in game-changers.

However, I recognize that the poverty cycle can be very hard to break. Getting a college degree is the best way to do that.

The parents who are poor can't afford paying for their kids' college educations, which limits the choice of future jobs with only low-paying ones.

The report also showed that Princeton and a number of other universities all over the country have instituted special programs that help poor students to roll in via paying their tuition fees and boarding expenses.

You might think that such an approach would make these kids believe that they don't need to work hard and that now they will sludge through their lives on subsidies without much worrying about their paths.

In reality, it's completely the opposite. These kids already apply to colleges. They are extremely eager to get it. The only problem that they have is that they don't enough cash to pay the costs themselves.

Yes, they may also have lower levels in particular subjects since they did not have the same opportunities to get deep into them as the other students did.

However, surely, after a couple of years they will be able to catch up, because the only thing you need in order to achieve something is actually wanting to reach that goal.

They are not lazy, they do not squander their time in college and they do not feel like other people are, for some reasons, obligated to help them.

Quite the opposite, they completely understand why other people do that and what they expect from them. These students themselves say that they view this scheme more as a job rather than a subsidy.

It's just that they are paid not to work, but to study.

They understand that the society will be looking to them to find the jobs in the fields, which they studied.

Since, it's very difficult - and, in the majority of cases - impossible to get a job in a professional field without a degree, the studies is a mandatory prerequisite for their working in this field.

I really liked watching this video. I am planning to travel to US in some time, if I am lucky enough to do that. If I get kids there, I would be honored to see some of the kids getting in together with my kids through the programs of this kind.