Billionaire Robert Smith spoke at Morehouse College’s 2019 commencement on May 19.
Mike Stewart / Associated Press
Students graduating from Morehouse College got a big surprise last week when their commencement speaker announced he’d personally pay their student debt.
However, the gift also shines a light on financial differences that exist at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, like Morehouse.
Brandon Manor is one of the lucky graduates. During the ceremony, he was trying to survive the near-90-degree heat. Then, billionaire Robert Smith said he would pay the class’s student loans.
“I’ve got the alumni over there, and this is my challenge to you, alumni,” Smith said. “This is my class, 2019. And my family is making a grant to eliminate their student loans.”
Brandon Manor is a member of Morehouse’s graduating class of 2019. Robert Smith has said he’ll pay off the class’s student loans. For Manor, that totals more than $100,000. (Credit: Morehouse College)
Manor said it took a minute during the ceremony on May 19 for that sentence to sink in.
“I mean, we heard him say it,” Manor said. “Everybody looked up and were like, ‘No. He can’t be serious.’”
Smith was very serious.
“We jumped up with so much joy,” Manor said. “It was tears. It was hugs. It was screams. It was smiles.”
Days later, Manor is still smiling. He had more than $100,000 in loans to pay off. He’s not alone. Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs, tend to take on more student debt than their peers at non-HBCUs. One reason for that is that HBCUs tend to have lower endowments than other colleges.
‘Wealth Begets Wealth’
“[HBCUs] were created as a separate system–some at the state level, some privately—and…they were sort of starved for resources from the get-go,” said Mary Beth Gasman, an education professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies HBCUs.
Investments in HBCUs didn’t improve much over time, she said.
“Wealth begets wealth,” Gasman said. “So, if you have more wealth historically in your family, you’re going to continue to build on that wealth. It’s the same thing with institutions.”
Brian Bridges, vice president for research and member engagement at the United Negro College Fund, says donors haven’t really stepped up either.
“Philanthropists have been reluctant to invest in HBCUs,” Bridges said. “They have a tendency to give their biggest gifts to institutions that have the most money.”
For example, Harvard has the highest endowment of any school at $39 billion. Howard University in Washington DC has the highest endowment among HBCUs at just under $700 million. That doesn’t make the top 100.
Will The Gift Keep Giving?
Critics of Smith’s gift to Morehouse have said philanthropic giving won’t solve the student loan crisis. But Brandon Manor says it will significantly affect his family.
“[Robert Smith has] changed my life my family’s life,” Manor said. “Now my little sister is going to be able to go to college and [we’ll] find a way to find a way to be able to afford that for her.”
Manor’s sister is 17 and plans to go to college in the fall, although she hasn’t decided where yet. In September, Manor will study at the National Institutes of Health’s Academy Enrichment Program. He’ll spend two years there, and hopes to enroll in medical school afterward. He wants to become a psychiatrist.
He said he plans to follow Robert Smith’s example and try to pay the gift forward one day.
“My goal is to be able to pay off someone’s tuition hopefully one day,” he said.
Mary Beth Gasman says the gift will have a generational impact for each of the 396 members of Morehouse’s Class of 2019.
“The [student’s] family will be in a much better place not having to help pay off that debt,” she said. “And then the future family will not be saddled with debt.”
Nonetheless, Gasman believes state and federal governments should make more significant investments in HBCUs.
“I would love to see an input or an influx of funding from the federal government into building the institutional advancement or fundraising infrastructure of HBCUs, she said. “I think that is an area that needs to be developed.”
Brian Bridges, of UNCF,hopes Robert Smith’s gift to Morehouse will inspire others to follow his lead. He says increasing assets at HBCUs will take not only more philanthropy but more alumni support and external resources from corporations and the federal government.
Bridges said it’s extremely tough for HBCUs to catch up with wealthier schools that have very high endowments. Even if HBCUs substantially increase fundraising, wealthier schools probably will too. But Bridges says HBCUs could come together and brainstorm.
“I don’t know that the gap can be made up, but I do think HBCUs could possibly be more strategic and intentional about the advising strategy that could help grow their endowments collectively,” he said.
