Educational Fast Track

Twenty-five first-graders from South-Central Los Angeles now have a powerful incentive to do well in school. The Merrill Lynch & Co. Foundation has set up a program called Scholarship Builder that guarantees them the money to go to college. The children at 74th Street School are among 250 inner-city students in 10 cities who will be helped under the plan suggested by the National Urban League, which will monitor the students’ progress.

“We will create some academic superstars among black Americans and other minorities,” said John Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban League, as he announced the new program last week. “All that (these students) have to do is study hard and apply themselves in school, with the support of their parents, teachers, administrators, Merrill Lynch and the Urban League.” The local Urban League, for example, will provide whatever tutoring is required and will meet periodically with parents to review their children’s progress.

The foundation has donated $8 million to a special investment account, or $2,000 a year per student until each of the 250 students graduates. The account’s value could grow to as much as $16 million by the time the students enroll in college or seek other training. The other cities involved are Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Miami, New York, Philadelphia and Washington.

The 25 students in Los Angeles were selected on the basis of academic promise. Their program differs from some of the other celebrated scholarships in that it begins earlier in the child’s educational career than most, and offers a stipend in place of college tuition for students who get fulltime jobs or who enter military service after high school graduation.

This educational-incentive program is one of several such plans that have been started recently, usually by private donors, to give youngsters of promise the chance to dream of going to college, anywhere at any cost. The generosity of donors is unquestioned, yet there must be a certain sadness that not all can dream these dreams. Someone--thousands of someones, in Los Angeles’ case--still gets left out. The ScholarshipBuilder program is an answer for only the smallest number of students who need encouragement. It would not be as necessary if more children could get the individual attention that they need in the public schools and if adequate federal and state college scholarships and loan programs existed as well.