Investor and philanthropist Robert F. Smith surprised the Morehouse College class of 2019 with a special graduation gift: He’s going to pay all of their student…
Investor and philanthropist Robert F. Smith surprised the Morehouse College class of 2019 with a special graduation gift: He’s going to pay all of their student loan debt.
«My family is going to create a grant to eliminate your student loans!» Smith told the graduates during his commencement address. “You great Morehouse men are bound only by the limits of your own conviction and creativity.”
His gift to the nearly 400 graduating seniors is estimated at $40 million, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
«If I could do a backflip, I would. I am deeply ecstatic,» Elijah Dormeus, a business administration major from Harlem in New York City with $90,000 in student loan debt, told the Journal-Constitution.
Smith, founder of private equity and venture capital firm Vista Equity Partners, is worth an estimated $5 billion according to Forbes, which made him the wealthiest African American in the country in 2018.
