Commentary
Americans generally value education highly. They see education as opening doors of opportunity and as crucial to both individual and social progress.
Far-seeing and generous colleges have long made scholarships available to students who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford a college education. Private lending institutions used to extend loans to economically disadvantaged youth so that they wouldn’t be excluded from receiving the benefits of higher education. As the fund-raising campaigns of the United Negro College Fund in the 1950s put it, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Indeed, it is—and not just for however many bright individuals couldn’t reach their potential because they couldn’t afford to pay for the necessary education, but a loss for our society as a whole. How tragically unenlightened it was for our society to lose out on the talents of some of our most brilliant individuals….