By 2033, a private college education will cost half a million bucks. It
feels awfully good to start planning now. If your wealth manager’s
not driving the process, find someone who will.
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I see a
future CEO or
tech entrepreneur
or senator!
I see half a
million dollars
in education
debt. I see a future CEO or
tech entrepreneur
or senator!
I see half a
million dollars
in education
debt.
to have their passports. It’s all about empowerment; many of these children — mostly
they’re 14 and 15 years old — have never been
too far out of Marin City. In Detroit they’ll
tour Whole Foods; they’ll see Niagara Falls;
they’ll visit a synagogue in Brooklyn; in
Washington, D.C., they’ll meet Congressman
Huffman; and in West Virginia they’ll go
down into a coal mine. They’ll hopefully learn
two things in those last two stops: one, how to
respectfully ask questions, and two, that black
people aren’t the only ones who are poor. We
select the kids who are struggling the most
to go on the trip, and they can’t bring their
cellphones — we provide a phone so they can
call home when they want to. Last year we
toured Harvard; this year it will be Spellman
and Morehouse colleges in Atlanta, Georgia.
And we work with the kids while they’re in the
van. Like, we list the “Things You Can’t Say
Anymore.” They can’t say they don’t understand business, because we toured a business
in Detroit; they can’t say they can’t go to
college, because in Atlanta they met college
students just like them, only a few years older.
We’ll stay in homes and churches; the Christ
Episcopal Church in Sausalito has been so
helpful in arranging places for the kids to stay.
Once in a while we’ll stay in a motel. Each
child is asked to bring money, and when that
can’t happen we quietly slip them a few dollars. The trip costs about $100 a day for each
child and we raise that from Marin businesses
and individual donors. We say Quality of Life
Road Trip involves 26 cities, two countries, 32
days and 18 changed lives. And it does; it really
changes lives — I’ve seen it happen. m
