Every kindergartner in this Michigan county is going to college, thanks to one foundation

The days where you could pay for all your college tuition with the earnings from a part-time summer job are long gone. Nowadays, things are a bit different: According to Forbes, the cost of college has risen an average of seven percent per year since 1985 with the overall college education inflation rate at nearly 500 percent. Needless to say, kids cannot afford to go to college and, when they can, they’re not all graduating.

In one small county in Michigan, a philanthropic organization called the Sanilac County Community Foundation wants to change the lives of kindergartners all throughout town by giving them something of crucial value: A college education.

“Our foundation has been around for 23 years and, like most community foundations, we run a lot of scholarships,” says Melissa Anderson, Executive Director of Sanilac County Community Foundation. Anderson and her team are giving 500 kindergartners in the county a $50 ‘Promise Fund’ that she and her team hope will grow into a fund the kids will use for college when they grow up.

After finding out that only 60 percent of her county’s youth were going to college — with even fewer graduating — Anderson and her foundation made a vow to up those numbers through what she’s calling a ‘pinky swear’ for the future.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

“In a county that only has 42,000 residents, these kids are a huge demographic and 500 students over 13 years is a lot of people that you get to make an impact on.”

Along with the initial $50, students will also receive incentives and donations from local businesses — like the Sandusky District Library — to encourage post-high school education. The ultimate goal of this Promise Fund? It’s simple, to make their community a better place.

“We’re bringing a better quality of life to Sanilac County,” continues Anderson.

“Those who have secondary training or certificates or a college degree generally don’t experience the economic downfall of job loss. They make more money, they’re healthier, they’re better citizens.”

Promise Funds have already started rolling out across Sanilac County and Melissa got to meet with some of the children whose lives her foundation would be changing. When she got the chance to ask one of those kids what he wanted to be when he grew up, Melissa was told that she was speaking to a future knight.

It will obviously take some number of years before we see the impact of these Promise Funds across the county, but what the Sanilac County Community Foundation is doing is providing a head start for hundreds of kids — something they’ll surely never forget.