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Editorial
This Promise looks promising
While the Yellow Springs Promise is still very much in the planning stages,
the concept is hopeful and intriguing.
The Yellow Springs Promise, proposed earlier this month to the local school
board, would provide guaranteed funds for higher education to all local
young people who graduate from Yellow Springs High School. It is modeled
after the Kalamazoo Promise, a concept considered groundbreaking when
local philanthropists introduced it in 2005. Kalamazoo Promise backers
hoped this plan, which guarantees full tuition to public universities
to all high school graduates, would attract new families and businesses
to a city struggling from automotive and paper plant closings.
While it’s too early for conclusions, the plan seems to be working.
Over 400 families have moved to Kalamazoo in the past few years, and housing
prices have risen about 10 percent. And other communities that followed
Kalamazoo’s lead have also reaped benefits, such as El Dorado, Arkansas,
where school enrollment increased 5 percent the first year a similar program
began.
The Kalamazoo project is undeniably bold, offering full college benefits
to every child. The local version, as proposed to the school board this
month by Lori Kuhn of the Morgan Family Foundation and Bruce Bradtmiller
of the Yellow Springs Community Foundation, is much more modest, which
seems appropriate for a small village. While the plan is only in the conceptual
stage, Kuhn and Bradtmiller suggested that the Yellow Springs Promise
would deposit an as-yet-undetermined amount in a fund for each child born
in the village, an amount that would grow for 18 years. As well as making
higher education more accessible to local children, proponents hope the
plan attracts new young families to town. Our village faces challenging
economic times, especially with the recent closure of Antioch College,
and this proposal offers one innovative way to address those challenges.
Kudos to Kuhn and Bradtmiller for their enthusiasm for the Yellow Springs
Promise, to Richard Lapedes for introducing the concept, and to the school
board members for their support. Creative thinking, which has enabled
our town to meet its past challenges, is clearly alive and well in the
village.
—Diane Chiddister
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