I’m talking of course about Robert F. Smith, the philanthropic billionaire who intercepted the killer college debt , 10 to 40 million dollars worth, that would have hit hundreds of young African American graduates of Morehouse College soon after their graduation ceremony. |
But only the loans of those students in that class.
How very unfortunate for the million upon millions of college graduates who happened not to have been members of that particular class in that particular school, the past, present, and future young people who have been and will be crushed by student debt, many of them too financially debilitated to move out of their parents’ houses for years, let alone get married, buy a house of their own, or start a family.
However it’s not only student debt that’s economically crippling college graduates. It’s underemployment and low wages in the workplace. Forty-one percent of this year’s college graduates will enter the work force into jobs for which they are over-qualified and that pay hourly wages that may not cover the cost of independent living .let alone student loan payments.
Both problems need legislation, and - as has been pointed out in OpEd pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post (see references below) - far better than having a philanthropic billionaire occasionally giving a random gift of charity to some lucky few recipients would be for all the super rich members of our society, instead of paying nothing to almost nothing in taxes because of our loopholes-for-the-super-rich-laden tax laws, pay an equitable share in taxes that could then be used for government-subsidized tuition assistance to make an education affordable for all the young starfish from sea to shining sea.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/opinion/morehouse-college-debt.html
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/underemployment-for-recent-grads-worse-today-than-in-early-2000-s-180429491.html
https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/why-robert-f-smiths-pledge-to-pay-off-morehouse-loans-is-a-turning-point-for-colleges-and-the-billionaires-that-support-them-2019-05-22?link=MW_latest_news
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7058019/Morehouse-College-students-loans-paid-billionaire-Robert-F-Smith-speak-out.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490
https://www.dispatch.com/opinion/20190522/editorial-billionaires-gift-tackles-student-debt