Millionaire helps kids go to college

[ashling]

[chrisstopher]

1. Way to go Chuck!

[SamKnause]

2. Wonderful !!!!!

[UtahLib]

3. Good to see a billionaire with a heart. nt

[KamaAina]

4. He could have set up an endowment

which would have had investment income of tens of millions a year, and gone on for centuries.

[Brigid]

5. Excellent point.

I wonder why he didn't do that.

Anyway, don't tell me, let me guess: He wasn't born rich.

[haele]

6. Endowments often get hijacked.

You have the endowment administrators, and the investors, and all sorts of other people who will make the decision where the money will go. Who rake fees off the top of endowments. Who make the decision of "which child is most worth saving"...

If I had his billions, I'd probably do something similar.
I'd set up local educational accounts and give blocks of them to public elementary schools in poor neighborhoods to award to 4th and 5th graders who just need a little push to get them through the rough adolescence - there would be a promise of college and something for them to keep striving for. If they want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a fireman - if they want to be an artist or engineer - they will have the resources to do so.
Just knowing that there's a chance for a future instead of facing the same life of poverty that surrounds the adults in your life can be enough to keep kids engaged with their potential.
The other thing I might do is pay for tutors, and summer school programs in those same neighborhoods, just to keep the kids occupied over the summer so they won't fall behind and their parents will get some relief - which is a major difference between "rich kids" and "poor kids" and their ability to learn.

Haele

[KamaAina]

7. For that kind of dough, he could even have set up his own university

and kept it tuition-free.

[haele]

8. True.

For a while at least. A couple Billion might keep a tuition-free university going for a decade or so.

But it's his money, and he's apparently trying to do good with it rather than play RL Monopoly or buy politicians and push an agenda that benefits his friends and personal reality. It's difficult to imagine many people at that level of wealth that would do the same.

And it is nice to occasionally wonder what we would do with money like that in his shoes...

Haele

[busterbrown]

9. Yea, I would normally say “Great Job my man.”...

However My innate mind tells me he is trying to get into heaven..

[Faryn Balyncd]

11. Actually, he did set up a foundation:

(... but he doesn't plan for it to go on for centuries, as he apparently plans to disperse the funds by 2016)

"Feeney founded The Atlantic Philanthropies in 1982, and in 1984, having made provision for each of his children and his first wife, as well as a very modest provision for himself, transferred the bulk of his wealth to the foundation.

"As of October 2012, Atlantic has made grants totaling more than $6.2 billion since 1982 and plans to spend its remaining $1.3 billion by 2016. The Atlantic Philanthropies grant-making supports health and social projects in Australia, Bermuda, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, South Africa, the United States and Vietnam. It is one of the largest charitable donors in each of the countries in which it operates, and is the single largest funder of ageing and of comprehensive immigration reform in the United States. In December 2011, Atlantic committed a $350 million gift to help build the campus for Cornell University’s new high-tech graduate school on Roosevelt Island in New York City.

"Feeney has been a major donor to his alma mater Cornell University, which has received over $950 million in direct and Atlantic gifts, including a donation of $350 million towards the New York Tech Campus. He has also donated around $1 billion to education in Ireland, mostly to third-level institutions, most notably the University of Limerick, and over $350 million to causes in Vietnam.

"In February 2011 Feeney became a signatory to The Giving Pledge. In his letter to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the founders of The Giving Pledge, Feeney writes, "I cannot think of a more personally rewarding and appropriate use of wealth than to give while one is living—to personally devote oneself to meaningful efforts to improve the human condition. More importantly, today's needs are so great and varied that intelligent philanthropic support and positive interventions can have greater value and impact today than if they are delayed when the needs are greater."



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Feeney

[ErikJ]

10. Doesnt even own a car...or Rolex.

Personal life[edit] _wikipedia

Feeney, an Irish-American with dual citizenship,[4] was born in New Jersey during the Great Depression and came from a modest background of blue collar Irish-American parents in Elizabeth, New Jersey, USA. His ancestry traces to County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. He served as a U.S. Air Force radio operator during the Korean War, and began his career selling duty-free liquor to US Naval personnel at Mediterranean ports in the 1950s.[5]

He graduated from the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration.[1] In 2010 he received the Cornell Icon of Industry Award.[6]

In 2012, in an historic event, all the universities of Ireland, North and South, jointly conferred an Honorary Doctorate of Laws on Feeney.[7] During the year, he also received the Republic of Ireland’s Presidential Distinguished Service Award for Irish Abroad,[8] and the UCSF Medal[9] for outstanding personal contributions to the University of California, San Francisco’s health science mission.

Feeney has four daughters and one son. He married twice. His first wife, named Danielle, is French. His second wife is named Helga.

Known for his frugality, Feeney flies coach class, owns neither a home nor a car, and wears a $15 watch.[10]