Obama donates Nobel prize money directly to college charities

Remember that Nobel Peace Prize that president Obama won a few months ago?  Well, it also comes with a significant cash prize of more than a million dollars, and the president has officially announced where that money is going to go.  And for a president who regularly calls for more education funding and free money for financially needy students, as well as student loan reform designed to make the costs of borrowing for tuition more affordable, he is literally putting his money where his mouth is when it comes to making higher education more affordable.

While not all of the recipients of Obama’s Nobel Prize funds are directly related to education, a lot of them are specifically aimed toward expanding educational opportunities for people and places with a traditional disadvantage when it comes to college access.

The following educational charities will each receive a sum of $125,000 from Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize award money:

• The American Indian College Fund
• The Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation,
• The Hispanic Scholarship Fund,
• The Posse Foundation,
• The United Negro College Fund
• And CollegeSummit.
• The Central Asia Institute will also receive $100,000 to promote and expand their efforts to educate women in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Whether or not Obama was your favorite choice for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, it is hard to argue with the fact that he wants to put the money toward good use.  Between the book sales, the presidential salary, and his virtually unlimited career opportunities after leaving office, he probably doesn’t need to worry too much about his own financial situation and luckily he realizes this is an opportunity to help out those who really do need a hand in order to achieve their educational goals.

People in politics often talk about grand and idealistic things that should be done with someone else’s money, its nice to see one once in a while who puts their own cash on the line.