Investor Robert F. Smith was invited to give the commencement address at Morehouse College, an all-male historically black college in Atlanta. Smith is the wealthiest black man in America, with a fortune estimated at $4-5 billion.
Smith began his speech by talking about his good fortune, having been bused to an integrated public school in Denver.
Smith described being bused to a high-performing, predominantly white school across town in Denver, where he grew up. He said he’ll never forget climbing onto bus No. 13 to Carson Elementary.
“Those five years drastically changed the trajectory of my life,” he said. “The teachers at Carson were extraordinary. They embraced me and challenged me to think critically and start to move toward my full potential. I, in turn, came to realize at a young age that the white kids and the black kids, the Jewish kids and the one Asian kid were all pretty much the same.”
After talking about how he achieved success, he dropped his prepared remarks and announced that he was paying all the student debt of the class of 2019, some 400 young men. The students were stunned, then broke into cheers and tears, along with their families.
This was a beautiful act of genuine philanthropy. Mr. Smith is not controlling anyone’s life, he is giving without strings or conditions. I know many readers will react by saying that higher education should be tuition-free, and I agree. But it is not. So for now, I say, thank you for this generous and kind act, Mr. Robert F. Smith.
Since the Washington Post is behind a paywall, here are other sites on which to read this heart-warming story, including a video clip.
Something tells me Robert F. Smith will have many invitations to give commencement addresses in years to come.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This gesture could well be a life saver for those young men. College debt can too often become a millstone which keeps future generations from reaching
their potential, forcing them to make choices between their dreams and the reality of debt.
While I invested in the undergraduate degrees of each of my four children (and I’ll be paying of those student loans until I’m 72), my one daughter had to forgo her dream of becoming a PA when she realized that after two years of coursework she was unable to afford taking time off from her job to complete the two years of clinical work (not with a child, husband, and an already accumulated mountain of student debt). She already had a good job and to switch careers too much of her paycheck would be consumed by these loans. She’d be working just to pay the lenders.
So congratulations to these new graduates. I wish you all a rich and full life. Please take advantage of this opportunity and try to make a difference. We are counting on you to be the agent of change and put our country on a better path to the future.
Ellen Klock
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This gesture generated a lot of positive p.r. Although I’m happy for the lucky graduates of Morehouse College; it is saddening to read flos56’s comment. Paying student loans until age 72? Her child foregoing her dream of being a PA due to the demands of clinical work?
We should be expanding educational opportunities for our children, not putting them in a lifetime of indentured servitude.
What kind of a country/society are we when we eat our own seed corn?
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We are a society consumed by greed. We are a society driven by how many “things” we own. We are a society that promotes “winning” at all cost….even if it means lying, cheating, stealing. I don’t know if we can even call what we have a “society”? We have a country full of ME’s and ME FIRST’s. We live in a sad world. It’s good to know that Mr. Smith is using his accumulated wealth for the betterment of society with no strings attached….that gives me hope.
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You hit the nail on the head. I could not agree with you anymore. Spot on.
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I had old parents. When I was 15, my 58 year old father had a brain tumor that stole his work life from him. I was saved financially by social security payments and cheap tuition. I hope I have paid it forward. One way I have paid it forward is to vote for political leadership that appreciates the role government plays in giving hope to those who, like me, found themselves short on opportunity. I hope the thousands of students I have taught over the last 35 years have paid some of that back.
So I applaud the gift, but I wonder if we need to look ourselves in the face and admit that the practice over the last three decades of shifting the burden of college payment to the students has not resulted in a major drag on the economy. While I agree with those who fault students for making unwise investments, I also think it is time that we perform an economic fix on this problem before it drags the economy into the muck and we have to end up doing it anyway.
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And for something different:
Betsy DeVos booed giving HBCU graduation speech.
https://twitter.com/ZeroDayKing/status/1130131119159033857
While Smith did a very nice thing for this graduating class, what about all the others? Student debt should not be left to the occasionally philanthropic act of a rich guy.
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