Billionaire to pay study loan of all grads
WASHINGTON, DC: Sunday was already a day of joy and pride for the graduating class at historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia — and then it got a whole lot better.
Robert F. Smith, an AfricanAmerican businessman with a fortune estimated at US$4.4 billion (RM18 billion), told the new graduating class that he plans to pay off all their student debt — an estimated US$40 million.
Of course, Smith received a thunderous round of applause from the 400 graduates — and from their parents.
“My family is going to create a grant to eliminate your student loans,” Smith told the assemblage.
“This is my class,” said Smith, who was at the ceremony to receive an honorary degree.
“I know my class will pay this forward” and help improve the lives of other black Americans.
Sunday’s news came as a surprise even to staff at Morehouse, according to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.
A spokesman said it was the biggest gift in the history of the school, whose graduates include civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, filmmaker Spike Lee and actor Samuel L. Jackson.
“If I could do a backflip, I would,” Elijah Dormeus, a business major, told the newspaper.
He said he had US$90,000 in student debt.
Smith, a graduate of Cornell and Columbia universities, founded Vista Equity Partners in 2000, and by 2015, had become the richest African-American, according to Forbes magazine, with a fortune surpassing even that of billionaire celebrity (and fellow Morehouse donor) Oprah Winfrey.