. >> pelley: nearly 70% of americans don't have a degree, and kaira kelly was destined to be one of themew up in poverty, and even today, she wastes nothing, because as a child she often had only one meal a day, the free lunch at school. >> kaira kelly: i guess i never really dreamed of going to college. i just knew i just had to do what i could do to make sure that my family and i could survive. >> pelley: when you started the scholarship, what were the big questions that you wanted to answer? >> bill gates: well, one was whether a group of minority students could have very high achievement, go to the toughest universities, if there was no financial constraint. >> pelley: you assumed that minority students would do as da glon higher e ab nearly 90% of the gates scholars have earned a degree, and that's life-changing because, on average, graduates earn a million dollars more in their lifetimes. now it's kaira kelly who's doing the teaching, after earning a bachelor's and master's degree in education with her gates scholarship. as college becomes more expensive and student debt rises, wha

and kaira kelly was destined to be one of them.up in poverty, and even today she wastes nothing, because as a child, she often had only one meal a day, the free lunch at school. >> i guess i never really dreamed of going to college. i just knew i had to do what i could do to make sure that my family and i could survive. >> reporter: when you started the scholarship, what were the big questions that you wanted to answer? >> well, one was whether a group of minority students could have very high achievement, go to the toughest universities, if there was no financial constraint. >> reporter: you assume that minority students would do as well in higher education, but what you were looking for was data, hard facts. >> you bet. what's proven itself out now with this scholarship program is you remove that barrier, they not only do as well as their white peers, no matter what zip code they're from, they often actually do better. >> morgan: you can see scott's full report on the gates scholars tonight on "60 minutes." still ahead, what's be