Steve Adams: Bull's-Eye Philanthropist
By Neal B. Freeman
There was something wrong with that picture. So he went back to the School of Music with a suggestion. He offered to pay the tuition bills himself. For every student. Every year. In 2005, Steve Adams prepaid $100 million worth of student tuitions.
Adams was bothered that some of the best musicians from the Yale School of Music took jobs on Wall Street. He learned that student loans were the problem. One Wall Street bonus could pay off all the loans. A musician had to face decades of payments.
Adams pre-paid tuition - $100 million worth.
Among Lutherans, the same thing could happen. The student loan debt placed on church workers is a disgrace, and the problem will grow even worse in the future.
I am not nominating a given millionaire for the honor. Congregations should make sure that the pastors, teachers, and their children are as free of the debt burden as possible. Now it seems to be no one's problems. In various ways the Boomers have let the burden fall on the younger generation, even though they paid relatively little for their own tuition and board.
