Promise to kids pays off with 49 new scholars

Weiss has promised 316 children he would pay their college tuition if they graduate from high school.

By Bill Delaney
CNN Boston Bureau Chief

BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- More than four dozen high school graduates will soon collect on a promise a rich guy made to them a decade ago. Financier George Weiss is going to pay their college tuition.

Years ago, the philanthropist walked into their second-grade class in a low-income area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. He promised the students that if they graduated from high school, he would bankroll their college education. Now 49 of them are taking him up on his promise. "We didn't know what college meant, we didn't know all that lay ahead -- we didn't know we were getting a free education," recalls Sandra Sousa, who is headed to Suffolk University in Boston.

"But over the years, " she said, "we got to know exactly what that meant."

Over the years Weiss has made his promise to 316 children at schools in Cambridge, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Hartford, Connecticut. So far, 157 have made the grade.

Weiss will not say how much money he has spent. One estimate is in the $20 million range.

Weiss said he always just loved working with inner city kids, even when he was a college student -- well before he made his fortune as a financier.

Gary Davis, who is headed for St. Joseph College in Maine, said when he realized around the sixth grade what a rare chance he had been offered, everything changed.

The second grade class in Cambridge to which Weiss made one of his promises.

"I was ecstatic," said Davis. "This set no limitations, you know, you know? Costs no longer matter and that was unbelievable.

Weiss said his offer probably changed a lot of attitudes.

"One of the things that I have learned is about raising expectations," he said. "The problem in the inner city is, people shoot low. The teachers shoot low, the parents shoot low -- everybody shoots low, and the kids end up not reaching their total expectation."

Weiss said he now expects to focus on even younger children and to begin funding money for parents to go back to school, too.