Perpetual Education Fund

I am watching President Uchtdorf at today's BYU graduation. Last year, I was there for Joe's graduation with a PhD in Education. The two of us sat on the first row in front of the Speaker's podium across the aisle from each other. This is the first year of my last 25 years at BYU that I no longer have one of my own children studying here, And this is my last graduation time before my retirement.

My thoughts are led to Education, especially experiential education as I have come to embrace it over the past 22 years since starting our law school's large externship program. We all learn life's most important lessons through experiences. I have been proud to promote service/learning, internships and other one-on-one mentoring opportunities over these years. We can all learn from books, lectures, classes and study; but nothing matches learning experientially.

We heard our neighbors give a presentation last evening on their mission in South Africa working with the Perpetual Education Fund. We learned that there have been 53,000 students in 53 countries who have had the blessing of this program established by a prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley in 2001. I remember sitting next to my dear son, Steve, and sharing tears with each other as this remarkable blessing for young people in developing countries was announced at a General Conference priesthood session. We had both been close to fledgling, experimental programs beginning through BYU's Kennedy Center in Mexico and Brazil through student interns working closely with Institute students in giving them computer skills and English-as-a-Second Language training. We had glimpsed the possibilities of spreading educational opportunities to faithful young adults, many of whom had served as missionaries. President Hinckley caught a much larger vision that was capable of being spread to many more people by providing funds through loans to be paid back from the increased earnings the education would make possible for them. Rather than taking educational programs to these young people like the BYU internships we were experimenting with, the loan-supported young people would seek out vocational and educational training in their own communities. Think of the rippling effect of these 53,000 individuals who lift their lives through educational opportunities. Families, communities and Church congregations all benefit from their education which freed them from subsistence living to work made possible by training and education.

Earlier, 160 years ago, many of our ancestors took advantage of the Perpetual Emigration Fund set up by another prophet, Brigham Young. It was designed to help converts fulfill their overwhelming desire to gather to Zion. I have no idea how many of our ancestors were direct recipients of this original fund. I do know that there were many probably including the Backmans, Prices, Pollards and Gardners in my own family line. Can we even come close to appreciating what that special fund and their use of it has meant to our families over the generations? Ponder what blessings flow to faithful young people willing to reach out and take advantage of opportunities placed before them including loans made available in generations past and the newest form of a similar blessing through Perpetual Education Fund loans.