CBS News did an extensive and laudatory report on the El Dorado Promise last night. This is the Murphy Oil-funded program to pay college tuition for all graduates of El Dorado High School. Housing bubbles may have burst elsewhere, but the real estate market is strong in El Dorado because of an influx of families drawn by the Promise.

Murphy’s CEO, Claiborne Deming, noted that El Dorado was fortuitously situated — a smallish city home to a very large corporation. (Not to mention a civic-minded one.)

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But what if six or seven Murphy Oils stepped forward to create a Little Rock Promise? Think it might boost the housing market, juice stagnant population figures, lift all boats? Just dreaming.

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