In honor of Martin Luther King Day, I have been thinking a lot about dreams. If you are reading this blog, odds are that attending college (or, at the very least, affording college) figures somewhere in your dreams.
For many of us, college is more than just a lofty dream. It is the representation of very concrete opportunities — opportunities to learn and grow, to discover and realize our career aspirations, to change our lives for the better. In many ways, higher education is the great equalizer. With a lot of hard work and dedication, we can all come out the other side smarter, wiser and better equipped for the rest of our lives.
In fact, the opportunity of higher education reminds me a lot of something Dr. King said that November day that he delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Monument:
I have a dream that… every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight.
That is what education can do for all of us: It can make the mountains that once seemed insurmountable passable; it can make the rough patches of life smooth; and it can straighten out our course when all our paths seem impossibly crooked.
The challenges of getting into school, keeping up your GPA, and, of course, paying for school, are great. But the opportunities are even greater. Cheesy as it may sounds, that is part of my dream for this blog: To help every person who wants to go to college or to stay in college find the resources and opportunities to do so.
Happy birthday, Dr. King!
