Is there a small college or university near where you live? Declining birth rates threaten to cause it to go belly up in coming years unless more students are found. Do you want to see a vibrant campus become a bunch of empty buildings? That would just attract illegal drug dealing and become a possible hangout for street gangs.
How about giving more financially challenged students a chance to attend college? We like to call our country the land of opportunity, but children who happen to be born into poor families cannot afford the high cost of college without financial assistance.
Let’s make a major effort to make it possible for financially disadvantaged students to attend college. Basically this means contributing money, both directly as individuals, and together as a community, to student scholarship funds that pay for tuition and college expenses such as books and student housing.
Many people are concerned about extreme income and wealth inequality, but they don’t seem to realize that economic inequality is just as extreme between the most well-known and highly-ranked big universities, and the less well-known, but highly-respected, smaller colleges and universities. The large, well-known universities are in great demand and have very large endowments of over a billion dollars, whereas the smaller, well-respected colleges and universities may have less than 10 million dollar endowments, which will have to be tapped, and will be consumed quickly, as enrollments drop off. As with people, the well-to-do are well-to-do indeed, while those with little to start with are struggling to get by.
It’s great to say we live in the land of opportunity, but let’s make it a reality for those who didn’t happen to be born into financially secure families. In thinking about tax write-offs for charitable giving, why not include giving some money for student scholarships, especially at those smaller, less-well-known, but highly-respected colleges and universities?
Lawrence C. Marsh, the author of “Optimal Money Flow: How a Dynamic-Growth Economy Can Work for Everyone,” has agreed to forgo his book royalties so that the full purchase price ($24.95) will go into the student scholarship fund when purchased through Avila University Press at the link: https://www.avila.edu/aupress/optimal-money-flow-by-lawrence-c-marsh