He set it up before he died to give some students a shot at doing what they believe in and some moral support to follow their dreams.

It?s very dismal. Nationwide, federal grants haven?t kept pace with tuition, so students have to borrow more. Loan indebtedness is soaring.

We don't have a plan if a pandemic comes around, we can't turn 53 buildings, 32,000 students and 1,800 teachers into a kind of virtual school. We couldn't even do that in a year. We don't have a plan for sending curriculum by e-mail to students. We'll be doing whatever we can in the best interest of the community. . . . And we would do whatever kind of enrichment activities we could.

Some of the students have maintained their contacts from the week and ended up with full scholarships. It could happen again.

We look for the students with the best applications, not where they are from.

It's wonderful. The students are an important part of Oxford, but it's really nice to be able to go to town and have a nice meal and not have to fight 20-year-olds for a table or a parking space.