Graduation Highlight: Billionaire Robert F. Smith Announces That He’ll Pay Off the Student Loans of Morehouse’s Class of 2019

Robert F. Smith, the bil­lion­aire CEO of Vista Equi­ty Part­ners, received an hon­orary degree from More­house Col­lege on Sun­day. And he gave some­thing back–a grant to retire the stu­dent loans of More­house­’s 2019 grad­u­at­ing class. Like that an esti­mat­ed $40 mil­lion in debt was gone.

Mean­while, in oth­er news, a titan of indus­try spent $90 mil­lion this week on a Jeff Koons rab­bit stat­ue. And now it will like­ly serve as an orna­ment piece in a walled-off man­sion some­where. Imag­ine how that mon­ey could have been put to more pro­duc­tive use…

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Is the Leonar­do da Vin­ci Paint­ing “Sal­va­tor Mun­di” (Which Sold for $450 Mil­lion in 2017) Actu­al­ly Authen­tic?: Michael Lewis Explores the Ques­tion in His New Pod­cast

John Waters’ RISD Grad­u­a­tion Speech: Real Wealth is Nev­er Hav­ing to Spend Time with A‑Holes

Meryl Streep Gives Grad­u­a­tion Speech at Barnard

David Byrne’s Grad­u­a­tion Speech Offers Trou­bling and Encour­ag­ing Advice for Stu­dents in the Arts

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‘This Is Water’: Com­plete Audio of David Fos­ter Wallace’s Keny­on Grad­u­a­tion Speech (2005)


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  • TexasHoldEm says:

    This guy real­ly did these kids a dis­ser­vice. It may be great for their pock­et­books short-term, but it fails to teach them impor­tant finan­cial lessons they will need through­out life. The younger gen­er­a­tion needs to learn that noth­ing in life is free, and you have to be smart about what you major in, and be ready to pay your share of the bills. This brain­wash­ing by politi­cians and oth­ers that things can be “free” in life is a bla­tant decep­tion. These kids need to learn how to pull their own weight and that their life deci­sions have con­se­quences, both good and bad, and they need to work on mak­ing pre­dom­i­nant­ly good deci­sions, assum­ing they even under­stand what that means.

  • Stephen Gunther says:

    Mr. Robert F. Smith — You are a good man. May you live to see the great grand chil­dren of the peo­ple you helped today grad­u­ate.

    Thanks from some­one who is not affect­ed today by what you did but could be in the future by the good done today by some­one you helped.

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