Is Skepticism Too High for the Kalamazoo Promise to Work in New York? The article in this past Sundays's magazine about the Kalamazoo Promise, a program announced in November 2005 that pays for the city's high-school graduates to go to public colleges in Michigan, is accompanied by a sidebar that imagines what it would take to do the same for students in New York City. The idea that other places might take their lead from Kalamazoo isn't far-fetched: by November 2006, a year after the Promise was made, seven other Promise-like programs had been started or announced, from Ventura, Calif., to Garrett County, Md. Six more were started the year after that. To date, there are some 25 such programs in the country. Nor is this progression the first time that a lavish commitment to finance the college education of strangers has started a trend. In June 1981, the industrialist Eugene M. Lang was speaking to a group of 61 sixth graders at an elementary school in East Harlem when he vowed to pay for all their college educations. That offer became the basis for the I Have a Dream Foundation, which tries to foster similar acts of generosity across the country. "Back then," says Iris Chen, the current head of I Have a Dream, "we were the only game in town." But philanthropists who got involved with the group went on to help start the Robin Hood Foundation, Teach for America and other charitable organizations pledged to improving public schools in New York and cities across the country. Of course, just because promises have been made elsewhere doesn't mean they can be made, and kept, in New York City. "It takes about $1.5 million to $2 million to take 50 kids from kindergarten up the mountain all the way through college," Chen says. There are very few people who can write that check. Or checks, if we're talking about the city's public schools. According to an estimate by Keith Luke at institutional investment firm Commonfund, bringing a Promise program to the city would require 10,000 or so checks of that magnitude. The biggest problem might not be scale, however; it might be skepticism. "If you're talking about an endowment of $25 billion," an officer at another philanthropic organization involved in educational programs points out, "that's more than the budget for the whole public-school system." For her part, Chen says: "I'm not a big believer in free rides. Financial literacy is a real problem in low-income families, and it's not a bad thing to teach kids how to deal with student loans. She goes on to add, "And why offer the Promise to those who can pay?"