Claiborne Pell
Politician
Rhode Island senator who established the eponymous college grant program which helps countless lower and middle class students afford higher education. He was in the Senate from 1961 to 1997.
He said his motivation for creating his grant program came from his own experiences going to college in the GI Bill after WW II.
He was Rhode Island's longest-serving senator at the time of his retirement and he was the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1987 to 1995.
He came from a wealthy family that could trace its origins back to a land charter by King
In the Senate he was a supporter of Lyndon Johnson's widening of the military action in Indochina, but opposed Ronald Reagan 's support of the Nicaraguan guerrillas.