Man Donates $20 Million To University He Couldn't Afford To Attend 60 Years Ago

Updated September 6, 2021

Once upon a time, a college degree seemed like a secure path to the good life. It wasn't exactly cheap but with the right amount of hard work and perseverance, it was possible to find a way through and the reward for doing so was clear.

Nowadays, however, many young people are finding that their degree doesn't necessarily guarantee them anything as so many employers require them for entry-level jobs. And since the act of attending college has only become more expensive and student debt has emerged as a national issue that's getting worse all the time, they're left wondering if it's even worth it.

But while it remains unclear what the future holds for the people stuck in this situation, at least one person who remembers what it's like to be them is doing his part to help in a major way.

In 1961, Calvin Tyler enrolled in what was then called Morgan State College to study business administration.

Facebook | Morgan State University

As Good Morning America reported, this made him the first member of his family to attend college and he had hoped at the time that he would be the first among them to attain a degree.

Unfortunately, this was not to be as he would drop out two years later. Although he wanted the degree as badly as when he started, he didn't have the money to pursue it.

After that, he would end up finding a job with United Parcel Service.

Reddit | cycles_commute

According to CBS News, this made him one of only 10 UPS drivers in Baltimore at the time but he wouldn't stay at that position forever.

Instead, he was able to work his way up through the ranks of the organization until he eventually became the company's senior vice president of operations. Before his retirement in 1998, Tyler sat on the UPS board of directors.

But while he obviously became a success in his own right, it seems that the path he could have taken stayed on his mind decades after all was said and done.

Twitter | @MorganStateU

And so Tyler (at center) and his wife Tina decided to work with Morgan State University in 2002 to create the Calvin and Tina Tyler Endowed Scholarship Fund. As CBS News reported, this fund has made 46 full-ride scholarships and 176 partial scholarships possible for 222 Morgan State students.

In 2016, the couple would return with a $5 million donation to the school. At the time, this was their largest such individual gift in history.

However, that record has once again been broken by the very people who set it in response to the nightmares of the past year.

Twitter | @MorganStateU

As Tyler said, "My wife and I have become keenly aware of the effect that the pandemic has had on a number of young people trying to get an education [and] we have the resources to help a lot of young people. This is why we are increasing our commitment at Morgan; we want to have more full tuition scholarships offered to young people so that they can graduate from college and enter the next stage of their life debt free."

That increase in commitment would take the form of a $15 million increase in their endowment commitments, which has now brought the Tyler family's total to $20 million.

Twitter | @MorganStateU

This will clearly have a significant impact on what the university will be able to provide for students. Its president David K. Wilson said that thanks to the Tylers' "historic giving, the doors of higher education will most certainly be kept open for generations of aspiring leaders whose financial shortfalls may have kept them from realizing their academic dreams."

h/t: Good Morning America, CBS News

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