On his
personal Facebook page, Ceo and Founder of Facebook,
Mark Zuckerberg, announced some good news for American immigrants who've lived in the U.S. for most of their lives, but who can't get student loans due to citizenship. Zuckerberg states:
Today Priscilla and I made a $5 million donation to TheDream.US, a scholarship fund that helps undocumented young immigrants in the US attend college.
Hundreds of thousands of young immigrants are part of our communities and attend school legally in the United States. Many of them moved to America early in their lives and can’t remember living anywhere else. They want to remain in the country they love and be a part of America’s future. But without documentation, it’s often a struggle to get a college education, and they don’t have access to any kind of federal aid.
America was founded as a nation of immigrants. We ought to welcome smart and hardworking young people from every nation, and to help everyone in our society achieve their full potential. If we help more young immigrants climb the ladder to new opportunities, then our country will make greater progress.
The investment Priscilla and I are making will go towards creating college scholarship programs for more than 400 young immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area over the next five years. TheDream.US is a national scholarship program that has done amazing work under the leadership of Don Graham and others, and we’ve previously invested in their work. But we also wanted to help extend their efforts in the Bay Area as part of our ongoing efforts to support social and economic programs in our local community. Over the coming years, our hope is to prepare hundreds of students to graduate with associate or bachelor’s degrees so they can build meaningful new careers.
This is just a small step towards creating immigration and education solutions that help our community and country make progress. You can learn more about this program at: TheDream.US
Some might say,
'Well, $5 million is nothing to him.' I'm going to go out on a limb and say the reason Mark Zuckerberg posted this statement was to
bring more awareness, and hopefully more support, to
TheDream.US. He gives to many causes. Zuckerberg is one of the 128 billionaires who has signed
The Giving Pledge founded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. The Giving Pledge signees commit to donating
50% or more of their wealth to charity. (I checked, Charles and David Koch aren't on
list)
Special thanks to Wendy C.