Billionaire investor Robert F. Smith has promised to pay off the student loan debt for this year’s graduating class of Morehouse College.
“My family is going to create a grant to eliminate your student loans,” Smith told the nearly 400 students and their families at commencement on Sunday, where he received an honorary degree from the nation’s only Black college for men, alongside actress Angela Bassett and psychologist Dr. Edmund W. Gordon.
“I will never forget that my path was paved by parents, grandparents and generations of African-Americans whose names I will never know,” said Smith, who founded Vista Equity, which invests in software, data and technology companies. “Their struggles, their courage, and their progress allowed me to strive and achieve. My story would only be possible in America, and it is incumbent on all of us to pay this inheritance forward.”
It is unclear when Smith, 56, will begin helping to pay off the student loan debt, which amounts to about $40 million, according to college officials. The current annual tuition at Morehouse is about $27,000.
Morehouse officials said Smith’s gesture is the biggest single gift in the school’s history.
In his address to the graduates, Smith challenged them to make a difference.
