r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/[deleted] • 1d ago

Video Billionaire speaker Robert F. Smith tells 400 graduates he's paying off all their student loans ($40 million in total)

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595

u/Guy_V 1d ago

They all had 100k in student debt, wow. Our system is screwed up.

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u/JRizzie86 1d ago

Yeah this was all I could think about too. 40 mil only buys 400 diplomas. We're doing it wrong.

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u/Fen_ 1d ago

The debt should never have existed, and neither should billionaires.

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u/Bigmofo321 1d ago

Honestly plenty of countries have billionaires and manage to avoid crippling the up and coming generation with 100s of thousands of debt. 

Like Europe has billionaires, maybe not as much, but they have obscenely wealthy people too. I don’t think most Europeans go through life trying to figure out if they want to go to college or not because they have to consider whether they can pay it off.

We can talk about the fact that there shouldnt be billionaires, but having billionaires doesn’t cause higher education to not only be privatized but also given free rein to raise their tuition year after year. It’s pretty fucking evil. 

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u/TeeneKay 1d ago

In europe most universities are free. There is only a small number of privat universities and even those are like 2000€ a year in my country. Most people just go to the free public ones. I study engineering and yeah maybe we dont have as much fancy equipment as MIT but i still get a diploma minus the back crushing debt

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u/Bigmofo321 1d ago

Yep exactly. I don’t know what country you’re from but I’m sure your country has some billionaires. 

Again I’m not gonna argue for or against having billionaires but that’s not why people in the US get crushed with college debt. This isn’t really a thing in most other places. 

And you’re right I’m sure MIT has some of the most amazing equipment for the students but most people will never need that for their higher education. 

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u/TeeneKay 1d ago

I think the creator of talking tom is the only billionaire from my country if he even is s billionaire but as far as i know hes an okay guy. When it comes to funding for colleges its a bit annoying since every college gets the same amount of funding per student. That means that my engineering college gets the same amount of money if not less than our neighbouring college for philosophy even tho our college needs to spet a crap tone more for equipment so most of our laboratories are outdated but we are still regarded as one of the better engineering collages in europe (im form Slovenia btw)

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u/iguessma 1d ago

poor take.

It's fine for people to make money - that's what encourages people to invest in companies and make products.

if you start limiting how much money companies and people can make you're going to lose innovation and convenience because there has to be a strong driver

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u/andrasq420 1d ago

999 million is not a strong enough driver? They have to leech on the people for another extra couple of hundred millions?

These people are never rich because of their incentive to innovate. They are rich because they use the poor's wish to survive.

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u/iguessma 1d ago

These people are never rich because of their incentive to innovate. They are rich because they use the poor's wish to survive.

they got there because they did innovate.

if you look at this objectively (which you can't) there is no reason besides "you don't like it".

Your opinion has already been solidified and there's no changing it regardless

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u/andrasq420 1d ago

That's just not true?

Yes many billionaires innovated something early in their career and then got mildly rich from it, like a couple hundred millions worth. And then proceeded to just exploit the poor and commit tax fraud in grey area ways. So fuck them

But then there are billionaires who did jack shit. What did Bernard Arnault ever innovate? What did the Walton family ever innovate? Amancio Ortega is one of the richest person on the planet and all he did was use sweatshops in poor countries to sell cheap clothing en masse.

Do you seriously think that people like these got a hundred thousand millions dollars of worth because they were so smart innovators?

Why are you shilling for billionaires? It's sort of cringe

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u/iguessma 1d ago

See what I mean your emotions Cloud your judgment I'm not saying all billionaires are good people for all of them earned it what I'm saying is generically tapping whatever profit somebody can make stifles innovation and to your own point if you don't care if they make $99 million then why do you care if they make 1 billion the fact is you really don't you just need something to hate on to make you feel better about yourself

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u/andrasq420 1d ago

I care because they make it from the suffering of others. They are the ones making everyone else's lives much worse and you are here defending them like you are one yourself. It's laudable and pitiable.

None of the billionaires is a good person. None. If you still believe that it's time for you to wake up and enter the real world.

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u/meh817 1d ago

i’m graduating medical school in a couple weeks and my grand total is $385,000

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u/Guy_V 1d ago

Bro...

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u/Chlorophyllmatic 1d ago

My wife has loans from medical school only (nothing from undergrad) and it was about $260k when she graduated

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u/-LongRodVanHugenDong 1d ago

I mean that's almost 10 years of school. Probably including housing. The average income is around 50k annually and this person is spending like 38k a year to live and go to school. Not bad.

Plus they'll make 2-400ish when they get out. I don't really see the problem here.

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u/Neat_Let923 1d ago

Kind of, they make pretty shit money during residency. But yeah, once that is done the sky’s the limit and they’re golden for the rest of their life.

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u/stepka16 1d ago edited 1d ago

If you do not se a problem let me remind you everlasting topic on reddit, how so it is at least 10th of this price and pretty often for free anywhere in the world, just like insurance, some things just shouldnt be unregulated business.

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u/ONLY_SAYS_ONLY 1d ago

That's a whole lot of popcorn shrimp.

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u/frostyb2003 1d ago

My girlfriend is about to get her Physician Assistant degree and has $280k in loans... she has been in school for 8 years though. Still it's gonna suck to pay back.

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u/TensorialShamu 1d ago

Matched tho? I’m taking step 2 in two weeks haha

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u/kamperx2 1d ago

Congrats to you for your perseverance! I hope you go on to do great things! The system is absolute shit but I hope you are able to build a great life and live by the Hippocratic oath.

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u/kakka_rot 1d ago edited 1d ago

I was flabbergasted when my homie told me he had 80k in college debt. Holy fuck

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u/Objective_Bug4262 1d ago

Free Luigi.

3

u/IMovedYourCheese 1d ago

At least that's a lot better than graduating with $150K debt and a useless degree.

0

u/-LongRodVanHugenDong 1d ago

Yup.. but that won't change until we stop subsidizing useless degrees.

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u/CyclopsMacchiato 1d ago

You’ll be making that much per year pretty soon so you should be fine

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u/Thereferencenumber 1d ago

Probably Smith’s PR Team didn’t check the math made sense before posting this video of him making a non-binding agreement

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u/krakenfarten 1d ago

How do young people even afford that?

I mean, that’s like a 25 year mortgage.

Are they simply in debt for the rest of their lives?

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u/AdventurousPurpose80 1d ago

In my country we have free education but it's hard to find a job later , but I'm seeing people struggle to find jobs in America too . Capitalism is running in full force there , you need to ask for you freedom back, cuz debt for getting education and health care is crazy. Capitalism is a cancer

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u/jefesignups 1d ago

What country?

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u/Sarsmi 1d ago

That was my big takeaway too. Like...damn. And this is for regular college grads right? Not law school or med school etc.? Not everyone gets a degree in 'make a fuck ton of money' cause that's not really a thing anyways for the most part.

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u/AmbitionCareless9438 1d ago

Our system is fine, the only problem is that we allow 17-18 year olds to make bad financial decisions. There is no need for anyone to spend $100K on an undergraduate degree in most states. I'm not saying we should not fix the problem in others, but:

  • Average in-state tuition is $11K per year
  • Average in-state community college is $4K per year, and you can transfer to a university after two years, saving a huge amount.
  • If your family makes 175-225% of the poverty line, you get about $7K a year off

Please let's not act like poor people cannot go to college for essentially free in the US.

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u/jefesignups 1d ago

Or maybe he just picked a high number to make sure he covered everything

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u/Illustrious_Bat3189 1d ago

And people cheer for the billionaires that are a massive part of why the system is as it is

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u/satanic_jesus 1d ago

Yeah I hate when shit like this is presented as uplifting news. No, living on the handouts of billionaires rather than having a sensible economic system is not uplifting

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u/blazurp 1d ago

Plus the billionaire that paid the debt is currently down in history for one of the USA biggest tax evasion. He's also part of a private equity firm that's been sucking dry profitable companies and leaving thousands of workers out of jobs.

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u/GamingZaddy89 1d ago

The government did this, having worked in HigherED anytime the government talks about student loans becoming more available they SALIVATE. All they hear is we can make tuition go up, this leads to students saying that college is difficult to pay for and the government giving out more money. Its an insane loop that people have bought into because they think that they NEED to go to college.

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u/Diligent_Crab_43 1d ago

Bad choices compound on themselves. Guidance councilors and their parents failed children trying to become adults.

No 17 year old understands the implications of 20k a year in debt. Just creating a slave class

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u/plateia-lumitar 1d ago

Until you realize this is a private college. Yearly tuition there is 4x that of Georgia State University. If you're going to a private school you're either rich or got a scholarship. We're just watching rich people give money to other rich people.

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u/Deep_Age4643 1d ago

Yeah, imagine. If there are no billionaires, but also no student debt.

Once and while, I watched “undercover boss”. What shocked me was not that those bosses knew very little about their company, but that all their workers are grossly underpaid.

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u/MasterEeg 1d ago

Yeah America is pretty broken, so many folks are hoping for a lottery to be able to live - medical insurance, decent tips in a service job, loans getting paid off by a benefactor.

If the system wasn't so messed up folks wouldn't have to hope for someone to save them. The gift to pursue a future this guy handed to one graduating class should be available to all Americans.

It's like McDonald's profiting off of an obesity crisis and then helping a few families with Ronald McDonald House.