Student Loans for After-School Math Education

A Zero-Interest Program Supporting Long-Term Learning Opportunities

We recently learned that a student’s sister received an offer from her dream school, Yale. She wants to become a doctor, likely following in her father's footsteps. She also received a few full-ride offers and five other offers from highly ranked liberal arts colleges. However, her mother told us they plan to decline the Yale offer due to the cost and instead choose a more affordable option.

This decision surprised me. I attended the Chinese equivalent of Harvard and have never regretted it. That opportunity allowed me to see the world from a much higher vantage point. Growing up, my family was very poor. At one point, my parents couldn’t even afford to take my brother—who had pneumonia—to the doctor. They had to borrow 5 RMB from a friend. That small act of kindness not only got my brother the medical care he needed, but also gave us just enough to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

I had a friend whose older daughter went to Yale and later attended Johns Hopkins for medical school. The mother is a biomedical engineer, and the father is a biostatistician—both faculty members at The Ohio State University. The older daughter graduated from a public school, at 16, and the younger one, who is a year older than my own daughter, switched to a local private school in fourth grade.

These stories inspired a new initiative at our school. We’re launching a zero-interest student loan program for after-school math education. While the funding may be modest, we hope it sends a strong message of support and encourages others to help students like her. The program will involve an application and selection process, similar to our Need-Based Financial Aid program.

I’ve invited the family to apply and offered for their younger child to be the first participant in this program. We will cover her after-school math education for the next four years as long as the loan is repaid when they’re able. The student doesn’t need to enroll in our classes—she can choose any program she feels most comfortable with. We also acknowledged that they know their children better than anyone else, so they are the best people to guide her with the decision.

One of my collaborators—formerly a dean at the University of Notre Dame—once told me that children of faculty members there could attend any private school and still receive the same tuition benefits. I liked that idea, and it’s the reason I decided to allow students in the student loan program to choose any math program they prefer, rather than limiting them to our own offerings.

Dr. Xue