. >> pelley: nearly 70% of americans don't have a degree, and kaira kelly was destined to be one of themoverty, 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 well in higher education. but what you were looking for was data, hard facts? >> melinda gates: you bet. what's proven itself out now with the 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. >> pelley: the gates program looked for good students, but not necessarily t