Sugar Land man one of lucky Morehouse college grads whose debt will be paid by commencement speaker

ATLANTA - Austin-based billionaire Robert F. Smith vowed to pay off student loans for everyone who graduated from Morehouse College, a historically black College in Atlanta, Georgia. Imagine $40,000,000 worth of debt wiped away in seconds. One of those lucky students is a 22-year-old from Sugar Land, who is still wrapping his head around what happened.

"Then when it kind of clicked for all of us, all of us immediately jumped, and you know, everyone was crying and hugging each other, and I just looked back at a couple of friends that were sitting in the row behind me and I just knew that this was a special moment for us,” said Alexander Sims, who majored in Political Science, and plans to attend Howard University in August.

He tells us now he can just focus on paying off future debt for law school.

“This is still a great blessing for me, but I know my parents were very fortunate to help me with most of my school, so a lot of my classmates that have had you know very large amount of debt this is a huge blessing for them,” says Sims.

A total of 396 students were set to walk the stage at the Morehouse College graduation ceremony, not realizing that Smith was about to give them the best graduation present anyone could ask for.

Some of those bright young men getting a fresh start now that thousands of dollars in student loans are gone.

Sims tells us, “I know this is a huge blessing for the entire class, so you know, there’s nowhere to go but up for you know, Morehouse Men of 2019.”

This isn’t the first time that Robert F. Smith has been incredibly generous to Morehouse College. In January, he donated $1.5 million for student scholarships and a new park on campus.