Billionaire promises to pay University Loans for students

This will make you ask the question what Kenyan billionaires are doing with their wealth.

The man above Robert Smith is the richest black man in the USA who on Saturday vowed to pay off the college loan for 400 graduates.

The philanthropist stunned students when he made the announcement.

The loans are estimated to be around 40 million US dollars that is 4 billion Kenya shillings.

Robert F Smith made the announcement while addressing nearly 400 graduating students at the all-male historically black Moreton College in Atlanta, Georgia.

Mr Smith is the founder and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm that invests in software, data and technology-driven companies.

“On behalf of the eight generations of my family that have been in this country, we’re gonna put a little fuel in your bus,” the investor and philanthropist told graduates in his morning address.

“This is my class, 2019. And my family is making a grant to eliminate their student loans.”

The announcement immediately drew stunned looks from faculty and students alike. Then the graduates broke into the biggest cheers of the morning. Morehouse said it is the single largest gift to the college.

@RFS_Vista May have broken the Internet with his generosity and charge to pay it forward. https://t.co/6dsfw2kToi

— Morehouse College (@Morehouse) May 19, 2019

Mr Smith said he expected the recipients to “pay it forward” and said he hoped that “every class has the same opportunity going forward”.

“Because we are enough to take care of our own community,” Mr Smith said. “We are enough to ensure that we have all the opportunities of the American dream. And we will show it to each other through our actions and through our words and through our deeds.”

The 56-year-old Smith was a chemical engineer for Goodyear and Kraft before attending business school. He worked for Goldman Sachs, specializing in technology investments, before starting Vista Equity in 2000.

Vista Equity invests solely in software, data, and technology companies and boasts capital commitments of $46 billion, the company’s website says.

Smith has quite the generous streak. In 2016, Cornell University, one of his alma maters, renamed its chemical and biomolecular engineering school in honor of the Austin, Texas, investor after he committed to donating $50 million to the school. He’s also donated millions to cancer research and the arts.

His Fund II Foundation provides grants under five pillars: preserving the African-American experience, safeguarding human rights, conserving the environment, providing music education and sustaining “critical American values such as entrepreneurialism,” the organization says.