First published July 17, 2019.
On May 19, 2019, the investor Robert F. Smith stood at the podium of Morehouse College's commencement in Atlanta and told the graduating class that he and his family would pay off their student loans. The class had 396 graduates. The final cost was reported at about $34 million, a figure that included loans taken out by parents and guardians to cover their sons' education.
Early news coverage, including Good News Network, estimated the gift at around $40 million. That number circulated widely before the actual balances were tallied. According to Morehouse College's history, it stands among the largest single gifts from a living donor to a historically Black college.
What exactly happened at the ceremony
Smith had been invited as the commencement speaker and received an honorary degree. Toward the end of his remarks he announced the pledge, and graduates and families in the audience responded with cheers and tears.
He paired the gift with a request: that the graduates pass the favour on. The idea was that a class freed from debt should help make the same opportunity possible for students who come after them, whether through their own giving, mentoring or community work.
Because parents' loans were later included, the gift reached families as well as graduates. For many households, Parent PLUS and similar loans are a large and often overlooked part of what a degree costs.
Who is Robert F. Smith?
Smith, born in 1962 and raised in Denver, trained as a chemical engineer before moving into finance. In 2000 he founded Vista Equity Partners in Austin, Texas, a private equity firm that invests in enterprise software companies. Reports from 2019 put the firm's assets at more than $46 billion; by January 2022 the figure had grown to about $86 billion.
He is also a signatory of the Giving Pledge, the campaign launched in 2010 by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates that asks the very wealthy to give away most of their fortunes. He was widely reported to be the first African American to sign it. His philanthropy has focused on education, the arts and opportunities for Black Americans, and he has chaired the board of Carnegie Hall.
One small correction worth making: some viral posts at the time called him “Robert J. Smith”. His middle initial is F.
Why Morehouse, and why it resonated
Morehouse College was founded in 1867 as the Augusta Institute at Springfield Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia, and moved to Atlanta in 1879. It is a private, historically Black liberal arts college for men. Its graduates include Martin Luther King Jr., filmmaker Spike Lee and Olympic champion Edwin Moses.
The gift landed at a time of intense debate about student debt in the United States, where outstanding federal student loans run well over a trillion dollars. Many studies have described how Black graduates, on average, borrow more for college and take longer to repay, often because their families have less inherited wealth to draw on. A pledge directed at a historically Black college spoke directly to that gap, which is a large part of why the story travelled so far.
Historically Black colleges and universities, often shortened to HBCUs, were founded mostly in the decades after the Civil War, when Black students were shut out of many other institutions. Many still run on far smaller endowments than well-known predominantly white universities, which limits how much financial aid they can offer and leaves more students relying on loans. A single donor covering a whole class therefore made a bigger difference there than it might have elsewhere.
For the graduates themselves, the practical effect was freedom of choice. Without monthly loan payments, a new graduate can more easily take a lower-paid job in public service, start a business, move cities or go on to graduate school.
Common misconceptions about the gift
- It did not cancel student debt nationally. The pledge covered one graduating class at one college. It was private philanthropy, not a policy change.
- The amount was not $40 million. That was an early estimate. The reported total was about $34 million.
- It was not only the students' own loans. Debts taken on by parents and guardians for the class's education were included.
- It was not a loan or a matching scheme. Graduates did not have to repay anything; the only thing asked of them was to help others in turn.
What it means for anyone managing student loans
Few people will ever hear a billionaire make an announcement like this, but the story is a good prompt to take stock of your own loans:
- Know what you owe and to whom. Federal and private loans follow very different rules. In the US, borrowers can see federal loans at studentaid.gov.
- Check repayment options. Income-driven plans and public service forgiveness programmes exist, but their rules change, so confirm the current terms with your servicer.
- Include family loans in the conversation. Parents who borrowed should know their own options too.
- Ask for help early. College financial aid offices and nonprofit credit counsellors can explain choices before payments fall behind.
A gift with a request attached
The most memorable part of Smith's speech was not the number but the expectation behind it. He asked a room of young men to treat their good fortune as a debt of a different kind, one paid forward to the next generation. Years later, the Morehouse class of 2019 remains a reference point whenever people discuss what generosity on a large scale can and cannot fix: it changed hundreds of lives at once, while the wider question of how to make higher education affordable remains open.
Sources: Wikipedia: Robert F. Smith (investor); Wikipedia: Morehouse College; Good News Network (May 2019); Federal Student Aid.
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