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An African-American boy lives on a street plagued by violence and the unconventional medications so fervently sought by the hopeless. Each day he hears the thunderous blasts that strike deep within even those untouched by the scorching slugs. He dreams that one day he will become a neurosurgeon, capable of saving even those with the most horrific head trauma.
A Chinese girl lives with parents she has never known in a cold, empty house full of things that neither she nor her parents need. Secretly, she takes some of them to local humanitarian organizations. She dreams that one day she will head the Peace Corps of South America.
A Hispanic girl lives on a farm owned by a man she has never met. The small, musty room she shares with two other families serves as kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. She dreams that one day she will be a lawyer fighting for the rights of migrant workers and their families.
A Caucasian boy lives alone with his mother and two younger brothers. Whether they eat dinner is never certain. His father was killed in a country he knows nothing about across an ocean he has never seen. He dreams that one day he will be a senator fighting to end a war started by politicians who have never seen armed conflict.
All four of these young adults share one thing in common: they have dreams to make the world a better place for the countless number of people who have all but lost hope. They remain unafraid to stretch their wings under conditions that threaten to clip them.
Educating the youth of today is an investment in tomorrow; one capable of producing vast returns. Only with a college education would those four adolescents be able to make their dreams a reality. Only with a college education will they be able to change the world. Extreme poverty or lack of spiritual nurturing threatens to destroy those dreams, and what a waste it would be.
Today, we face extraordinary dilemmas. Our government is tampering with a bomb that will soon explode (even more than it has), just as the Baltic region did prior to the First World War, and the destruction of essential natural environments threatens to turn our world into a cold concrete jungle.
The burden now lays in the hands of the college bound students of today. To previous generations, it appears that these college bound students are a part of a generation that is perpetually deteriorating. Only to the untrained eye does the extensive dissimilarity of ideals appear to be deterioration. To bar us from an education for such a reason would be to starve the rose bush only because it has not yet bloomed. It would be a mistake. |
= Grand Prize winner for this category