Billionaire Pledges To Pay Off All Student Loans Of Graduating College Class

May 25, 2019 by apost team

Billionaire and philanthropist Robert F. Smith had a special surprise for the students of Morehouse College. Smith had just finished giving the commencement speech for the school’s 400 graduates when he revealed that he would be paying their student loans.

Morehouse is an HBCU in Atlanta, Georgia, and Smith said that it was his intention to honor that legacy in paying the graduates’ debts. Smith talked about the legacy of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and how African Americans had to acquire skills in technology fields that are becoming more and more automated by companies, reported CBS.

Smith concluded his address by saying that the graduates are responsible for the next generation. Smith believes that the skills that the graduates learned at Morehouse will be instrumental in showing young boys and girls that the American Dream is still attainable in the modern world.

Upon learning that their student loans would be paid, the graduates gave Smith a deafening send-off, cheering and applauding the businessman for his generosity.

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Aaron Mitchum, one of the graduating students that Smith is going to help, told reporters from the Associated Press that before commencement, he had created a spreadsheet to detail all the debt he had accumulated throughout college. Mitchum revealed that this debt amounted to about $200,000 and would take him 25 years to pay.

Mitchum looks forward to deleting this document from his computer when he gets home from the ceremony.

Smith, whose net worth is estimated at $4.5 billion, is the founder and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, private equity firm. As news outlets began reporting on Smith’s great act of generosity, which amounts to about $40 million, a spokesperson for the businessman told Buzzfeed News that it was his great pleasure to invest in the future of the young college’s graduates. In his speech, Smith described the gift as “putting a little fuel” in their gas tanks. 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Congresswoman from New York, said that Smith’s action could be the start of something exciting. Ocasio-Cortez also said that the news further illustrates the importance of making college affordable to all people.

Elaborating, Ocasio-Cortez says that student loans are often crippling for newly graduated students and the government needs to look into greater ways of providing relief.

Watch Smith's inspirational speech in the video below:

What do you think Robert Smith’s act of generosity in paying the student loans of Morehouse College’s 2019 graduating class? Let us know in the comments and don't forget to spread the positivity by showing this story to your friends and family!