> It would be like a family in a household were you are about to die of hunger or of some disease by lack of treatment, made their priority to pay your university tuition fees instead.

Perhaps you aren't aware, but this very scenario and others similar to it happen throughout the animal kingdom and in human species. In the wild, mothers often abandon their sickly or less fit children to focus all their energy on ensuring the survival of their most fit offspring. It is also possibly a reason why poorer people, especially farmers, tend to have more children than urbanites as a sort of morbid insurance. The more children you have, the greater the chance one has at surviving. Parents do often put more resources into the child that shows the most promise. It's a valid survival strategy. I'm just stating that what you think is crazy is actually pretty rational and is practiced.

That said, if you don't have programs like these, then the best and brightest are simply going to leave and you'll experience brain drain, making it that much harder to endemic problems. There is more than enough food to feed the world, these destitute situations arise mostly because of corruption or government incompetence. 6 yr old me had no interest in solving corruption and/or economic development and I imagine I'm not alone.