Could he create a foundation that would be open to every single graduate to submit a proposal for say $50k. Each graduate has to say how they will use that money i.e.:loan repayment, seed money for new business, support my sick family member. That would be hard to administer however because how do you know if the awardee actually used the money to do what they said they would do.
To the folks who feel Mr Smith discriminated with his announced donation, do you also feel other charities should give the same amount to everyone in the area where they operate? Should food banks be giving us all food or money for those who don’t need the food? Should the Red Cross be helping everyone on the block (or providing money if help isn’t needed) where a house fire occurred even if only 3 or 4 houses were affected?
We have scholarships given by private individuals at our public school. Are they horrible because they can only choose one (or a few) students and don’t offer the same cash to everyone? What if they can only offer it one year and not every year? Is that doubly worse?
Interesting points but the ‘are they horrible’ comment is a discussion ender.
^^^ Why?
@Creekland said:
It such a benefactor stood up at commencement and said they were giving $1000 to every student whose surname begins N through T, then I’d say they were generous and arbitrary.
@pickpocket But they don’t do that. Sometimes the folks choose their own winners and sometimes they let the school choose. Unless they opt to be anonymous, their name or foundation name is listed with the scholarship regardless of which way they do it.
@Creekland, in your example it can be assumed some criteria was used to select winners, based on merit and/or need. In the Morehouse situation, the rewards are allotted based on outstanding loan balance, which may or may not be a good approximation of each family’s hardship in financing the education. I nevertheless acknowledge that it was a very generous action.
Update: the earlier #s were not correct- Smith’s donation is not $4M, its apparently more like $14M, to cover all the student debt (student and parents apparently). There were 396 graduating from Morehouse this year.
This article says $40 million…
His gift to the nearly 400 graduating seniors is about $40 million, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The figure of $40 million doesn’t seem to make sense — if there are only 400 graduates, that’s $100,000 per student. OTOH, $14 million works out to an average of $35,000 per student, which seems much more likely.
$40 million for 396 graduates would be about $101k per graduate, which is hard to believe.
$4 million would be about $10k per graduate, and $14k would be about $35k per graduate. The last number is the most believable one.
I got goosebumps when my husband read me the newspaper article about Mr. Smith’s most generous gift. It must have been amazing to have been in that room!!!
@EENYMum - I think it was an outdoor graduation ceremony, but I know what you mean!!
And he made it clear that class had to “pass it forward”, by reducing the debt of the next classes.
$100k per graduate on average is not totally unbelievable. There was one student that had $200k in debt. Financing is a significant reason many low income students start but don’t graduate college and why HBCUs have low graduation rates. Morehouse offers very little financial aid yet many African American young men and their families would do anything to attend even if the debtload makes no sense.
@pickpocket The criteria folks use is not always simple black and white. Many like to support certain fields or majors - like nursing, religious, art, science, or whatever. One couple likes to support two students who are unlikely to get other scholarships - one lad and one lass. Both of these categories often have several students to choose from. I’ve no idea how they make their final selection, but some get chosen and others don’t. Different years there can be siblings who are eligible for the same scholarship and one gets it but the others don’t. We were in that category ourselves with our three lads with a 5 digit value scholarship - wasn’t even our highest scorer who got it, nor did we have two in college at that time. We never felt slighted. We were happy to have a significant amount less we had to pay. It would have been nice for the others to have been chosen as well, esp the lad who worked the hardest for his schooling, but we never felt slighted. Maybe that’s just us.
This is life. Their money, their choice. When we donate it’s our money and our choice.
https://ticas.org/posd/map-state-data#overlay=posd/state_data/2018/ga lists average debt of graduates as $31,833. Perhaps that does not include parent loans, but it is rather likely that $200k debt is an extreme outlier, since that would mean borrowing the entire list price for four years. The average parent PLUS loans overall are nowhere near $70k.
@ucbalumnus average debt doesn’t include parent or co-signed private loans so does not give the full picture. I know too many families taking out full loans, so I’m not that skeptical of the number.
Likely very happy for them. No group roots harder for the success of the Black man more than Black women!
@TomSrOfBoston I suspect they’re very happy for them. No one roots harder for the success of Black men than Black women.