In a commencement speech of businessman Robert Smith last year to the 2019 class of Morehouse College, he impacted the lives of all the graduating seniors in the audience by pledging to pay off their student loan debt.
Also in this year 2020, smiles are being showered on the faces of successful young African-Americans, as yet another prosperous Black man is gesticulating to change the future of these promising young black students.
Frank Baker, the founder of a private equity firm that invests in technology companies, has attributed his inspiration to Smith’s pledge and is trailing his kind gesture path. Baker has just recently announced his commitment to paying the tuition balances of about 50 seniors graduating from Spelman College in Atlanta.
“Robert was fortunate enough to go to Cornell and Columbia and him giving to Morehouse was a nod to the recognition that the majority of African-Americans going to college are graduating from historically black institutions,” Baker, who graduated from the University of Chicago, told Forbes. “We need to make sure these schools continue to be viable. We are all part of the same community. It doesn’t matter if I went to the school or not.”
Baker got the information from the college’s board of trustees that there were 50 high-achieving seniors who had balances and needed help.
“The people who my heart really goes out to are women in their senior year who can’t afford it anymore and have to drop out,” Baker says. “These are the most resilient people because if they run out of money their senior year, you know they were out of money their sophomore year and just made it work.”
It has been estimated that the cost of paying off the tuition balances of the 50 graduates is at $250,000. Baker has further made a pledge of committing approximately a million dollar to assist Spelman seniors in the same financial condition for the next three years.
“These are the women we need in the workforce,” he says. “They are going to make a difference”, he added.
