The Transformative Power of Higher Education

“You’re an American student, you’ve already finished college and your government will help you pay for your degree to be a lawyer – so why do you care so much about helping girls in Peru go to college?”

This was the question 21-year-old Vittana student Rosa Maria Urbano posed at the end of our interview. Rosa is using her $700 Vittana loan to complete her college degree in biology at the University of Federico Villarreal in Lima, Peru so she can one day work as a geneticist. Already a scientist at heart, she is a pro at formulating sharp and sometimes skeptical questions. Rosa was the only Vittana student I interviewed bold enough to question my own motivations for working as a Vittana fellow.

Overwhelmed by her probing questions and scrambling to use my imperfect Spanish, I failed to share with Rosa the true inspiration for my commitment to Vittana’s mission – my own family’s history.

My great-grandmother, Bhagirathi Rao

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Meet Bhagirathi, my Hindu great-grandmother (pictured left).

Bhagirathi had only finished a few years of schooling when she married Hanumanth at the age of 12.  Bhagirathi and Hanumanth lived in a modest home in the small town of Nagpur, in central India, where together they used Hanumanth’s meager civil service salary to support their six children. However, the health burdens of repeated pregnancies, the responsibility of caring for six children, the family’s strained economic conditions, and their location far from any college or university, all made it impossible for Bhagirathi to continue her education.

My great-grandmother, Diana Ezekiel

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Now meet Diana Ezekiel, my Indian Jewish great-grandmother (pictured right).

Upon attaining her high school diploma, Diana met and married my great-grandfather Moses, a college botany professor. Moses and Diana lived in a low-income neighborhood of the bustling metropolis of Bombay where, like Bhagirathi and Hanumanth, they relied on a very modest income to care for their five young children.  But for Diana and Moses life was slightly easier – Moses’ salary was sufficient enough to allow Diana to attend college and pursue a degree in education.

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So how did the future unfold for each of these families?

Soon after graduating, Diana founded her own school for poor Muslim and Jewish children in Bombay. Diana used her additional income from her job to send all five of her sons and daughters to college, where they became highly successful professionals. But Diana’s biggest contribution to her children—especially her daughters—was the example she set. Diana proved to them that higher education was in fact attainable and led to greater financial independence, self-confidence and the ability to make a real impact in their chosen field. She inculcated in our family the value of higher education.

Diana’s oldest daughter went on to become one of the first female Indian doctors to win a fellowship to study public health abroad, at the University of California-Berkeley. Her daughter—my mother—completed her Ph.D. in India and emigrated to the United States, where she until recently served as president of a large international development NGO in Washington, DC. Now, as I prepare to start my first year of law school at Stanford University, I am unable to ignore the fact that I have greatly benefited from the legacy left by Diana and the women before me.

As for Bhagirathi, life had other plans. For her and her family, each day was a constant struggle. Only two of her girls were able to finish high school, and all four daughters remained in poverty their entire lives.  Bhagirathi’s son—my grandfather—by virtue of the gender norms of the time, was the only child to attend college, later joining the Indian navy. Of Bhagirathi’s grandchildren, most suffered ill health and were unable to break the chronic cycle of intergenerational disadvantage and poverty. I have no doubt that had Bhagirathi been given the same opportunity to attend college as Diana, her future and that of her family would have been drastically different.

Looking back on my conversation with Rosa, I should have explained to her how the experience of my family serves as a testament to the transformative power of higher education. It is because of higher education that I, the great-granddaughter of two low-income women in India, can even dream of attaining a professional degree from an elite university in the U.S.  Access to affordable higher education allowed my family, and others like mine, the opportunity to achieve marked social and economic mobility within three generations.

Rosa, here with her mother, will be the first woman in her family to obtain a college degree

In my discussions with Rosa, she made clear that she is most grateful for her Vittana loan because it gives her an opportunity to fulfill her dream of making an important contribution in the field of genetics. But what she doesn’t yet realize is that the biggest impact of the Vittana loan—allowing her to be the first woman in her family to obtain a college degree—is that it will fundamentally alter the future of her children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. The most important consequence of attaining a higher education is that its benefits—greater access to employment, exposure to new technologies, enhanced social mobility—do not stop at the individual, but are passed on to subsequent generations. Higher education truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

To make a loan to a student like Rosa, click here!

Tagged as: EDAPROSPO, education, fellows, peru, sustainable economic development