William Farrow, 55, remembers trying to scrape together enough money to attend graduate school.

A product of Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, Farrow had graduated from Augustana College in Rock Island in 1977, but got nowhere in obtaining a student loan from a couple of  banks. But when he visited a branch of Northern Trust Corp., the Chicago-based bank lent him $1,500. The son of two teachers was on his way to a master’s in management from Northwestern University in 1979. Get the full story »