Oral Lee Brown, a real estate agent in California, "adopted" an inner-city Oakland elementary school class 17 years ago--by promising to pay for the 23 students in that class to attend college--if they got that far.

In 1987, when Brown made her promise, the school (Brookfield Elementary) had some of the lowest test scores in Oakland's school district; the school could be best characterized as located in a neighborhood "beset by temptations and transgressions."

At the time, Brown was making $45,000 per year. She decided to place $10,000 annually in a trust that would be available to students in the class who lived up to their end of the bargain. Today, there is more than $375,000 in the trust.

Last year, 3 of the 23 Brookfield students graduated from college; this year, three more are graduating. In addition, 13 more are taking college classes.

To learn more about Brown's program, go to www.oralleebrownfoundation.org.

Brown is not the first person to adopt an elementary school class for this purpose. In 1981, businessman Gene Lang guaranteed college funding to students at his own elementary school in Harlem. Lang later went on to form the "I Have a Dream" foundation, which has sponsored 180 similar projects in 27 schools, reaching more than 13,000 students.

Tip: If you don't have someone like Brown or Lang sponsoring your college education, you'll need to look elsewhere to find funding for college. Billions of dollars in free aid is available. To find out about this funding, check out Reference Service Press's line of award-winning financial aid directories.

Please send your inquiries, comments, and suggestions to info@rspfunding.com.
News report posted October 1, 2004.
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