Billionaire Robert F. Smith, who received an honorary doctorate at Morehouse College’s Sunday morning graduation ceremony, announced that his family is paying off the student loan debt of the ENTIRE Class of 2019.
“My family is going to create a grant to eliminate your student loans,” he said to the graduating seniors. “You great Morehouse men are bound only by the limits of your own conviction and creativity.”
via AJC:
The announcement elicited the biggest cheers of the morning.
Tonga Releford, whose son Charles Releford III is a member of the Class of 2019, estimates that his student loans are right at about $70,000.
“I feel like it’s Mother’s Day all over again,” she said.
The gift has been estimated at $40 million.
Tonga’s husband, Charles Releford Jr., is also a Morehouse graduate. He said their younger son, Colin, is a junior at Morehouse.
He doesn’t know who the keynote speaker will be at Colin’s graduation ceremony but is hoping for a return performance by Smith, who is chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, a software and technology investment firm.
“Maybe he’ll come back next year.”
For those wondering, Robert Smith has an estimated net worth of $4.4 BILLION.
