Morehouse commencement speaker to pay off Class of 2019's student loans

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | Bo Emerson

[DUMBGRUNT]

Billionaire Robert F. Smith, who received an honorary doctorate at Morehouse College’s Sunday morning graduation exercises, had already announced a $1.5 million gift to the school.

But during his remarks in front of the nearly 400 graduating seniors, the billionaire technology investor and philanthropist surprised some by announcing that his family was providing a grant to eliminate the student debt of the entire Class of 2019.

... He doesn’t know who the keynote speaker will be at Colin’s graduation ceremony but is hoping for a return performance by Smith.

“Maybe he’ll come back next year.”

[Steven Scharf]

The $1.5 million is a separate gift announced the day before graduation.

[Chode]

so another 4.2M, hell of a tax right off

[Chode]

belay that, 42M...

[Steven Scharf]

Your comment makes no sense. There has been no reference to $4.2 million is n the article or comments.

The billionaire gave the school $1.5 million which was announced on the day before graduation. At the graduation ceremony he announced that he would pay off the graduates loans. He may or may not be able to write the off. A commentor suggested it could be $40 million.

BTW, billionaires don’t worry about $1.5 million tax write-offs.

[Steven Scharf]

Posted this before I saw your correction.

[Chode]

yeah, my eyes aren’t what they used to be and missed a zero

with all the black acting/sports stars out there, more money should be flowing to these HBC’s

[Right Wing Assault]

I would have said, "I will pay off all the dept of students who earned at least a 3.5 GPA. I will pay off the dept of the remaining grads only if all the professors get a 25% pay cut for the next two years."

[DUMBGRUNT]

See #7, MC pay is not that high.

I met a pipeline welder that grossed well over 200k.

And the NYC train robbers...

[GaryCrow]

Good on him, he’s putting his money where his mouth is by donating his own money instead of screaming for the taxpayers to pay for it AOC or Bernie style.

[DUMBGRUNT]

Good on him, he’s putting his money where his mouth is by donating his own money instead of screaming for the taxpayers to pay...

A very good point.

[Amendment10]

"Get the feds out of education and watch it become affordable again and the need for loans goes away."

Thanks for mentioning getting the unconstitutionally big federal government out of education.

Constitutionally low-information college administrators are milking the feds for all the unconstitutional, vote-buying federal educational dollars that they can imo, making college expensive for everybody.

From a related thread…

"Bernie Sanders proposes U.S. education policy [??? emphasis added] overhaul to appeal to black voters"

FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument

It’s no surprise that misguided, post-17th Amendment ratification Sen. Sanders doesn’t seem to understand that the states have never expressly constitutional delegated to the feds the specific power to make policy, regulate, tax and spend for INTRAstate educational purposes any more than it does for things like unconstitutional Obamacare.

More specifically, not only did President Thomas Jefferson reflect on the 10th Amendment when he indicated in a State of the Union address that the states would first need to appropriately amend the Constitution before the feds could dictate policy for intrastate schooling, but military-related schooling aside, Justice Joseph Story had also indicated that schooling is uniquely a state power issue.

• 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

• On a few articles of more general and necessary use, the suppression in due season will doubtless be right, but the great mass of the articles on which impost is paid is foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers [emphases added].”—Thomas Jefferson : Sixth Annual Message to Congress

• "Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

• "The power to regulate manufactures, not having been confided to congress, they have no more right to act upon it, than they have to interfere with the systems of education, the poor laws, or the road laws, of the states [emphases added]. Congress is empowered to lay taxes for revenue, it is true; but there is no power to encourage, protect, or meddle with manufactures." —Joseph Story, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1, Commentaries on the Constitution 2

• ”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.

So although Sanders’ heart is arguably in the right place, he is unthinkingly trying to expand the powers of the already unconstitutionally big federal government with his constitutionally indefensible campaign promises.

Remember in November 2020!

MAGA!

[MSF BU]

I wonder what the reaction was from families who had scrimped and saved or students who had done the same or served in the military to put themselves through that school.

[Michamilton]

Student C hates to carry debt. So he works part-time at McDonald’s every evening. He graduates with no debt. He gets no gift.

Let's see:

Average Crew Member wages at McDonald's in Georgia are $7.80/hr.
https://www.indeed.com/cmp/McDonald's/salaries?location=US%2FGA

Cost of Attendance at Morehouse is $32,062
https://morehouse.edu/financialaid/coa.html

$32,062 / $7.80 / 52 (weeks in a year) = 79.05

Student C would have to work almost 80 hours a week (for an entire year with no time off) at McDonald's to pay for a year at Morehouse.

[1Old Pro]

Get the feds out of education

Yes

[1Old Pro]

Well, that’s nice. But what about the kids who took a job after school each day, to avoid taking on debt? What about them? I guess they’re all suckers. A better choice would have been to give each graduate a start-up gift of $15,000, or whatever.

Once again punishing those who were planners and/or paid their debts.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Leaning Right makes a valid point and it isn’t nice you jumped on him (or her). Some kids no worked extra hard making money during high school or worked their way through college and graduated debt-free. They were working when their friends were out partying.

Their reward for hard work, thrift and sacrifice? Nothing. The kids who didn’t work so hard and borrowed money get the reward. He’s created a perverse reward, rewarding the wrong things.

I applaud Mr. Smith for his incredible generosity, but this gift is not well thought out. He could have endowed a scholarship for future students. He could have given every student a gift. There’s a lot he could have done that would have been more equitable and fair.

[sparklite2]

Their reward for hard work, thrift and sacrifice? Nothing.

---

Really? How about a college degree? If my neighbor down the street won the lottery, I wouldn’t go around complaining how unfair it wasn’t me.

Throwing cold water on this event is churlish. I mean, what would Jesus say? LOL

[ProtectOurFreedom]

They ALL earned a college degree. The lucky ones are getting a $15,000 or $20,000 "bonus" for NOT having the virtues of thrift, saving, and hard work. Smith's heart is in the right place, but not a good way to be charitable.

Your lottery example doesn't hold water because it is a game of chance.

[sparklite2]

It’s not worth the electrons. CUL