Say you had a million dollars.  That would be pretty cool, right?  You’d probably go shopping more than once a month.  Maybe bankroll your friends at the bar.  Pay off those student loans.  Get yourself set up in a cushy lifestyle, right?

Okay, now say you had $100 million.  You’d still do all of the above, but with the leftover change I hope you’d go all-out Oprah on some people in need.  Genocide refugees, abandoned animals, sad kids with distended bellies and flies on their faces…take your pick.  It’s really not that hard when you look at everything that’s going on in the world.

Or so I thought until one Mr. Henry Kravis proved me wrong.  The dude’s loaded.  Forget millions, his net worth is in the billions range.  And while he did recently make a significant donation, it wasn’t to the type of organization you’d expect.  Thanks to Kravis’ generosity, 100 million of his hard-earned dollars will be going to Columbia University’s Business School.  Because Ivy League universities need 450,000 feet added to their buildings and this guy really needs his name on a library or something.  Riiiight.

I’m sure the school would have gladly accepted a donation of a far lesser sum and maybe even still put his name in big stone-engraved letters somewhere.  The rest of that cool $100 mill could have fed families, bought vaccinations, or sent young girls to school.  Hell, he could have even done something as frivolous as sending a thousand sick kids to a baseball game and it would have been a better call. Read More »

Last night, President Obama addressed the current economic crisis, assuring America that “We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.” That sounds especially promising to the billions of college students across the country, who are faced with escalating tuition costs and skyrocketing student debts, and who are watching as the window of opportunity seems to shrink with news of major layoffs every other day.

However, if you play your cards right, you can find great success after college. Sure, some of us will spend years after college struggling to pay off student loans and going on interview after interview, sometimes for entry-level jobs we are overqualified for but still can’t seem to nab. But some of us are on the brink of making headlines, like these uber-successful post-grad powerhouses have done in recent years.

1. Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda went to Wesleyan University in Connecticut, a school where tuition runs at over $38 grand a year, plus $10-12,000 for room and board expenses. While attending Wesleyan, Miranda, a native of Inwood, New York City, turned his life experience into a theatrical production that has exploded since his graduation from the University in 2002. Miranda is the composer and lyricist behind the smash hit musical In the Heights, which was produced at Wesleyan, picked up for off-Broadway, and transferred to the Great White Way in 2008. Miranda, an actor-slash-rapper who originated the lead role, Usnavi, in his own show, picked up a Tony award last spring and is currently slated to reprise the role when it hits the silver screen. Read More »