Five Years After Morehouse: How SFI is Further Enabling HBCUs, TCUs, MSIs and their Students

Five years ago this week, I pledged to pay off the student loan debt of the graduating Morehouse College class of 2019 .?

I was motivated to make this gift after I found out that only 38% of students who started at Morehouse College actually graduated with a degree in four years. I asked why the graduation rates were at that level. Were the requirements too strict? Were the classes unreasonably challenging? Were the students not being supported?

The answer was shocking: a college education was simply becoming unaffordable. Too many students were finding their aspirations dashed against the financial reality of $1.7 trillion in outstanding debt owed by 43 million borrowers with an average of $39,000 in student loan debt each. Too many talented individuals were seeing their potential limited by their bank accounts. Too many young men had the ability to succeed, but not the means.

I was inspired to support the class of 2019; to help them graduate with a clean slate, to start businesses and to pursue their passions. In the five years since that day, students like Aaron Mitchom have started tech firms that leverage AI to reform the bail bonds industry, while others like Ernest Holmes have founded organizations like CodeHouse , which connects diverse youth to the tech sector. Other students like Bobby Kannady and Samuel Hood are in graduate school,? pursuing an MBA and a Ph.D. in machine learning, respectively, at Georgia Institute of Technology . It is easy to see how these students were enabled to achieve new heights once they were freed from the burden of student debt.

I also recognized that erasing student debt for 396 people wasn’t enough to change the reality that had created the problem in the first place. We needed to do more to help all students at our nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) and other Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) find a pathway to affordably attend college. That’s why in 2020 I created Student Freedom Initiative , or SFI – a financial alternative and wrap-around support service to help ensure more students graduate and excel after graduation.?

At the core of SFI is the belief that every student should have access to educational opportunities. SFI is focused on innovating and executing programs at scale that can measurably increase access to education and reduce the racial wealth gap. We know that education has always been and will continue to be one of the most important levers to achieving economic mobility; currently, individuals who have bachelor's degrees earn nearly $1.2 million more over their lifetimes than those who don’t. To date, SFI has provided over 500 affordable student loans, totaling over $6.4 million, making access and opportunities more attainable for students who have traditionally lacked the resources to pay for higher education.?

Of course, affordable loans are not the only support students need. HBCUs, TCUs and other MSIs are often required to do more with fewer resources. Due to centuries of discrimination and a lack of equitable long-term investment, 82% of HBCUs reside in broadband deserts, making it impossible to access high-speed internet at a time when it is essential to remain competitive in the digital economy. Many don’t have the resources to create educational programs in growing fields like renewable energy and artificial intelligence, or to develop the underutilized space in their surrounding areas. And with more limited networks, many of these schools are unable to give students career exposure through paid internships. That’s why I continue to organize monthly calls for the Morehouse Class of 2019 to meet with leaders like Roz Brewer, John Utendahl, Adeyemi Ajao, Richelieu Dennis, Gary Guidry and Jaylen Brown to expand their networks.

This reality is a disservice not only to our students, but to the Black community and the country as a whole. HBCUs are responsible for creating 40% of all Black Engineers, 50% of Black doctors and lawyers and 10% of Black Ph.D.s . These are not institutions that we can afford to continue underfunding and underinvesting in.?

Across all of these areas and more, SFI is working to identify trusted corporate partners and create programs to meet the needs of these institutions. By working with HBCUs and 19 state broadband offices across the country, SFI has created broadband digital equity plans to allow these communities to take advantage of Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program funding from the federal government to help close the digital divide. We continue to seek partners in our efforts to firmly close the digital divide; it will take an additional $20 million to cover the necessary infrastructure, education and training to uplift these communities and our entire economy.

SFI is also working with companies like Cisco to upgrade the cybersecurity capacity of HBCUs to protect both their data and Federal Title IV funding based upon new Department of Education cybersecurity guidelines . To date, this has protected $1.5 billion across 42 HBCUs serving over 200,000 students, which is used to offer students scholarships and otherwise improve HBCU institutional capacity. SFI is working to solve housing affordability through a partnership with the Steinbridge Group and their $100 million commitment to build affordable housing on underutilized land. As part of this effort, SFI and Steinbridge announced the largest investment in Virginia Union University’s history to help build affordable community housing, which will allow community servants like teachers, firefighters, police officers and more to live in the communities they serve.

We haven’t stopped there. SFI partnered with Stats Perform , a Vista Equity Partners portfolio company, and with Clearloop Corporation , to provide hands-on access to AI and renewable energy education – offering an example of the possibilities when innovative thinking and resource deployment converge. With Stats Perform, students at Morehouse College were able to enroll in a first-of-its-kind “AI in Basketball” course. Through a partnership with Clearloop Corporation, SFI created Innovation Centers at partner campuses where students, alumni, faculty and local community members complete intensive in-person training with solar projects. And through the internXL program, we’re connecting over 30,000 diverse internship candidates with over 300 top companies, building a pool of qualified applicants who will one day be leading companies and board rooms. Together, these efforts are giving students exposure and experience in in-demand fields, allowing them to become more competitive applicants for full-time jobs in critical industries.

These are just a few examples of what is possible when partners are aligned in their values to expand opportunities to those who have, for far too long, been left behind. We have only been able to support students and higher education institutions thanks to the backing of organizations like the Walmart Foundation, Prudential Financial , Stackwell , the Capital One Foundation, Cisco , Jane Street and the Fund II Foundation . Grant support and one-time financial contributions help HBCUs, TCUs and other MSIs to survive – but scalable systems like SFI have allowed them and their students to thrive. We can and must provide students at these schools with a strong education. As Dr. King said, “We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education,” and why it is vital that we support these institutions.

This spring, the first cohort of students receiving support from SFI will graduate across the country. We celebrate their accomplishments and are encouraged to push forward. There is still a long way to go to bridge the resource and access gaps in higher education, but by building out networks of support with dedicated partners, the gap looks more closeable every day.