John Edwards Ends 'College for Everyone' Support

Greensboro, North Carolina, July 31. Officials for the Greensboro based Center for Promise and Opportunity, a non-profit organization founded by former senator and Presidential candidate, John Edwards to provide college education funding for disadvantaged students, announced it was suspending operations.

As a candidate for president former North Carolina Senator John Edwards represented himself and as the candidate who would end the problems of inequality in America. He vowed to end the gap between "Two Americas" in which there is one society consisting of the rich and privileged and another for the poor and disadvantaged.

While a successful trial attorney and a millionaire several times over Edwards presented himself as one of the poor who had been raised by a hard working "mill worker" father and an uneducated mother and who as an attorney had "dedicated his life" to assisting the poor and unprivileged. Edwards vowed as President he could and would initiate policies that would close the gap between the two Americas.

Closing the gap between the Two Americas would begin with providing equal education for everyone. As a demonstration of his dedication to this goal Edwards announced during his 2005 run for the presidency that he was initiating a pilot education program that he promised would be a model for the nation. The pilot program referred to as "College for Everyone" would be a privately funded program designed to increase the number of students in rural or depressed areas attending college. It would do this by providing the cost of tuition, books and fees at a public college for one year. To qualify for the program students were required to work a minimum of ten hours per week while in college, take college preparatory courses in high school and have no disciplinary problems.

The pilot program was implemented in the Greene Central High School in Eastern North Carolina in 2005.

At a cost of $600,000 (raised from private donations) for the first two years local school officials judge the program as a huge success. The Raleigh News and Observer reported that students and parents who never considered college as a possibility took great interest in the program and over 190 students entered four different state colleges under the program. Patrick Miller, the Greene county school superintendent said that college applications rose fro 26 percent two years earlier to 94 percent this year.

Today, following a failed run for the Presidency, Edwards announced that he would be discontinuing the program.

Reaction to the announcement was one of disappointment. Edwards had often visited Greene County touting the program and inspiring students to seek more education. "The chance to go to college meant everything in my life. I want everyone to have the same chance I have had" said Edwards during a speech to Greene county students.

Many disappointed students enrolled in the program questioned whether Edwards promises were anything more than campaign rhetoric.