"Billionaire Robert F. Smith stunned Morehouse College's Class of 2019 when he pledged over the weekend to pay off their student loans. Details of the plan are forthcoming, but any effort to wipe away the education debt of hundreds of graduates will take more than simply writing a check," The Washington Post reports.

"Student loan repayment can be a complicated business, involving not only the borrower and the university, but also companies paid by the federal government or private lenders to service the debt. That means lots of paperwork and lots of people to dot i’s and cross t’s before Morehouse grads are debt-free.

'If they all had one servicer, that would make this logistically easier,' said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. 'At a minimum, any payer would need some vitals from the borrower, the loan servicers, loan account numbers and payoff balance.'

During his commencement address Sunday at the Atlanta college, Smith, who declined to be interviewed, said his family would create a grant to pay off the loans of the graduating class. A representative for the philanthropist — a tech executive who is founder, chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners — said Monday that Morehouse will be responsible for administering the grant.

Morehouse officials said the college is figuring out the logistics and calculating the exact amount of student debt that will be erased.

The college’s financial-aid office will probably be charged with identifying eligible graduates and reaching out to their loan servicers to dispense the grant. The pledge covers only loans the students took out themselves, not those taken by their parents, according to Smith’s representative."

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Publication Date: 5/21/2019