Billionaire pledges to pay student debt for 2019 class

Level 2 l Upper intermediate

1 Warmer
Match the American words with their definitions.

1. college a. a third-year student (one year before the final year)

2. senior b. main subject
3. major c. a final-year student
4. junior d. university

2 Key words
Complete the sentences using these key words from the text. The paragraph numbers are given to
help you.

honorary spreadsheet eliminate sibling donate

weep burden stunned pledge profound

1. If you ___________________ something that is not wanted or needed, you get rid of it. (para 1)
2. If you are ___________________, you are so shocked that you can hardly speak. (para 1)
3. An ___________________ degree is given to someone to recognize them because of their work or something
important they have done; they have not earned the degree in the usual way. (para 2)
4. A ___________________ is a serious and public promise to do something. (para 2)
5. A ___________________ is a chart produced on a computer that shows numbers in a way that makes them
easy to compare. (para 3)
6. If you ___________________, you cry because you feel unhappy or have some other strong emotion. (para 3)
7. A ___________________ is a serious or difficult responsibility that you have to deal with. (para 3)
8. A ___________________ is your brother or sister. (para 4)
9. If you ___________________, you give money to an organization, especially to a school, hospital, political
party or charity. (para 8)
10. If something has a ___________________ effect, it has a serious impact on people or on something else.
(para 9)

3 Find the information

Find the following information in the text as quickly as possible.

1. How many graduating students did Robert F Smith speak to?

2. How many generations of Robert F Smith’s family have been in the USA?
3. According to estimates, how much money has Robert F Smith promised to pay to eliminate the student debt of
the 2019 class?
4. What is the total unpaid student debt in the USA?
5. What are HBCUs?
6. What job did Robert F Smith train for?
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NEWS LESSONS / Billionaire pledges to pay student debt for 2019 class / Upper intermediate
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Billionaire pledges to pay student debt for 2019 class
Level 2 l Upper intermediate
Billionaire pledges to pay student
debt for 2019 class at historic black
US college
Martin Pengelly
19 May, 2019
1 Delivering a speech to graduate students at
Morehouse College in Atlanta, where Martin
Luther King Jr was a student, the billionaire
technology investor Robert F Smith made
a surprise announcement: his family would
eliminate the student debt of the entire class
of 2019. The nearly 400 graduating seniors
reacted with a moment of stunned silence, then,
unsurprisingly, the biggest cheers of the morning.
2 “On behalf of the eight generations of my family
that have been in this country, we’re going to
put a little fuel in your bus,” Smith said. “This is
my class, 2019. And my family is making a grant
to eliminate their student loans.” Smith, who
received an honorary doctorate in the ceremony,
had already announced a $1.5m gift to the
college. The pledge to eliminate student debt for
the 2019 class was estimated at $40m.
3 Aaron Mitchom, a 22-year-old finance major,
said he had drawn up a spreadsheet to calculate
how long it would take him to pay back $200,000
in student loans. It came to 25 years at half
his monthly salary, he said. In an instant, that
number vanished. Mitchom wept. “I can delete
that spreadsheet,” he said. “I was shocked. We all
cried. In the moment, a burden had been removed.”
4 His mother, Tina Mitchom, was also shocked.
Eight family members, she said, including
Mitchom’s 76-year-old grandmother, took turns
over four years to take out the loans that got
their student across the finish line. “It takes a lot
of people,” she said. “It now means he can give
something in return and give back to the college
and maybe for his younger siblings.”
5 Unpaid student debt in the US, which was $1.5tn
in 2018, has become a major national problem.
The federal education department has rejected
99% of applications for student debt forgiveness.
The issue has now become a point of contention
in the Democratic presidential primary. In April,
2019, the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth
Warren was praised when she published a plan
to cancel much student debt and make public
college free, funded by a tax on the super-rich.
© Springer Nature Limited 2019. Macmillan Education is part of the Springer Nature Group.
NEWS LESSONS / Billionaire pledges to pay student debt for 2019 class / Upper intermediate
6 There is a distinction between commitments to
tuition-free college and debt-free college, but
Warren is not alone in focusing on the cost of
further education. The Vermont senator Bernie
Sanders, for example, focused on it in 2016
and is doing so again in 2019. Among other
candidates, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York has
said she will allow students to refinance debt
at a lower interest rate, while Kamala Harris of
California said “we need a commitment to debt-
free college, which I support”.
7 Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana,
has released a proposal to make college
debt-free for low-income students. It read:
“Historically Black Colleges and Universities
(HBCUs) and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs)
are vital for this country and our communities,
and deserve to receive more direct support.”
8 Morehouse is an all-male HBCU. Smith, who is
African American, is an engineer by training who
has also donated to Cornell University in New
York. He also studied at Columbia. As founder
and chief executive of Vista Equity Partners,
a private company that invests in technology
companies, he is 355th on the 2019 Forbes list of
richest Americans.
9 Morehouse president, David A Thomas, said
Smith’s gift would have a profound effect.
“Many of my students,” he said, “are interested
in becoming teachers, for example, but leave
with an amount of student debt that makes that
impossible. In some ways, it was a liberation gift
for these young men that just opened up their
choices.”
10 Tonga Releford, a parent of a Morehouse
student, said her son’s student loans totalled
about $70,000. “I feel like it’s my birthday all over
again,” she said. Her husband, Charles Releford
II, also a Morehouse graduate, said their younger
son was a junior. “Maybe Smith will come back
next year,” he said.
© Guardian News and Media 2019
First published in The Guardian, 19/05/19
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Billionaire pledges to pay student debt for 2019 class
Level 2 l Upper intermediate
4 Comprehension check
Are these statements true (T) or false (F) according to the text?

1. The 400 graduating students were surprised by Robert F Smith’s announcement.

2. One student estimated it would take him 25 years to pay back his student loan.
3. All the Democratic presidential candidates have the same policy on student debt.
4. Robert F Smith became wealthy by working as an engineer.
5. More than half the students at Morehouse College are female.
6. Student debt makes it impossible for some students to become teachers.

5 Find the word

Find the following words and phrases in the text.

1. a noun meaning an amount of money that the government or an organization gives you for a specific purpose
and does not ask you to pay back (para 2)
2. a two-word phrasal verb meaning prepare something such as a document or a plan (para 3)
3. a three-word prepositional phrase meaning happening almost immediately (para 3)
4. a verb meaning not agree to a proposal or request (para 5)
5. a three-word noun phrase meaning something that causes disagreement between people or groups (para 5)
6. a noun meaning a difference between two things (para 6)
7. a verb meaning replace one loan with another one on which you pay less interest (para 6)
8. an adjective meaning very important, necessary or essential (para 7)

6 Two-word phrases
Match the words in the left-hand column with those in the right-hand column to make expressions from
the text.

1. student a. effect
2. further b. doctorate
3. profound c. salary
4. interest d. loan
5. honorary e. rate
6. monthly f. education
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NEWS LESSONS / Billionaire pledges to pay student debt for 2019 class / Upper intermediate
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 Billionaire pledges to pay student debt for 2019 class
Level 2 l Upper intermediate
7 Word-building
Complete the table using words from the text.

verb noun
1. apply
2. announce
3. lend
4. invest (person)
5. give
6. forgive

8 Discussion
Discuss the statements.

• All education should be free to everyone.

• Education is an investment in the future.

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NEWS LESSONS / Billionaire pledges to pay student debt for 2019 class / Upper intermediate
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Billionaire pledges to pay student debt for 2019 class
Level 2 l Upper intermediate
KEY

1 Warmer 5 Find the word

1. d 1. grant
2. c 2. draw up
3. b 3. in an instant
4. a 4. reject
5. point of contention
6. distinction
2 Key words 7. refinance
8. vital
1. eliminate
2. stunned
3. honorary 6 Two-word phrases
4. pledge
5. spreadsheet 1. d
6. weep 2. f
7. burden 3. a
8. sibling 4. e
9. donate 5. b
10. profound 6. c

3 Find the information 7 Word-building

1. nearly 400 1. application

2. eight 2. announcement
3. $40 million 3. loan
4. $1.5 trillion 4. investor
5. historically black colleges and universities 5. gift
6. engineer 6. forgiveness

4 Comprehension check

1. T
2. T
3. F
4. F
5. F
6. T
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NEWS LESSONS / Billionaire pledges to pay student debt for 2019 class / Upper intermediate
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