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A billionaire is wiping out the debt of an entire 2019 college class. AOC says they shouldn’t need an ‘act of charity.’

A billionaire is wiping out the debt of an entire 2019 college class. AOC says they shouldn’t need an ‘act of charity.’

In an astonishing display of generosity, billionaire Robert F. Smith announced that his family is providing grants to wipe out the student debt of the entire 2019 class at Morehouse College.

Smith made the announcement while giving a commencement speech at the all-male historically black college in Atlanta, Georgia on Sunday, May 19. It was met by an enthusiastic cheer from the 400 graduating seniors.

“My family is going to create a grant to eliminate your student loans,” Smith said. According to the college, Smith pledges to donate $40 million to the graduates.

Smith is the founder of Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm with over $46 billion in assets.

While Smith’s donation is an incredible show of generosity, it also highlights the tremendous burdens faced by millions of many college and trade-school graduates. Americans owe $1.4 trillion in college debt. That’s more than they owe on car loans or credit cards.

The average college senior now owes $29,000 in student loan debt and the average bachelor’s degree holder takes 21 years to pay off their loans.

Student debt prevents young Americans from starting businesses, buying homes, or saving for retirement. It also forces them to make hasty career decisions so they can stay afloat.

Freshman Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used Smith’s generous donation to highlight the student debt crisis.

She also saw the donation as an experiment to see how debt-free graduates behave as opposed to those who leave college under extreme financial stress.

Ocasio-Cortez campaigned in favor of creating tuition free college and trade schools as well as eliminating all student debt. It’s an issue that's close to home for her, because she’s still paying off her degree from Boston College where she graduated in 2011.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders echoed Ocasio-Cortez's statement at a town hall in Montgomery, Alabama.

"A very kind gentleman, a billionaire, forgave the debts of students at Morehouse," the Democratic presidential candidate said. "What he did was very generous, but the truth is that private charity alone is not going to solve a problem in which some 40 million Americans are struggling with right now."

"The time again is long overdue to stop the punishment of millions of people who did nothing wrong except try to get the best education that they could," he continued.

Education

Florida principal forced to resign after showing Michelangelo's 'David' to students

“It saddens me that my time here had to end this way."

Photo by Igor Ferreira on Unsplash

Florida principal fired after showing statue of "David."

If you ask most teachers why they went into education, they'll share that it had nothing to do with the money and everything to do with their passion for teaching. Even with rapid changes in curriculum and policies, teachers who remain in the classroom are lovers of education and are doing their best to help kids learn.

Hope Carrasquilla, the former principal of Florida's Tallahassee Classical School, was one of those teachers who simply enjoyed teaching. As the principal, Carrasquilla was required to teach two classes. During her sixth grade lesson about Renaissance art, which is also a requirement of the school, Carrasquilla showed a picture of Michelangelo's "David" statue.

According to the Tallahassee Democrat, three parents complained about their children being shown the picture. Two of those parents were mostly upset that there wasn't sufficient notice given before the photo of the sculpture was shown. The third parent reportedly complained that the statue of the Biblical figure was pornographic.

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Men were tested on their knowledge of female anatomy and failed hilariously

SIX ovaries?!

YouTube

"What Do You Know About The Female Body?" from Jimmy Kimmel

When Jimmy Kimmel takes to the street, you know you’re in for a good laugh at just how little we actually know about, well, seemingly anything. That goes for anatomy too. In this case, female anatomy.

In a segment called “What Do You Know About The Female Body?” men try—and hilariously fail—to answer even the most basic questions, like “does a female have one uterus, or two?” much to the amazement of some of their female partners.

Here are some of the very best bits of nonwisdom:

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Family

Dad found out his son bullied a kid at school and came up with a brilliant teaching moment

"I told him that we have the opportunity to make things right."

@thehalfdeaddad/TikTok

Dad on TikTok shared how he addressed his son's bullying.

What do you do when you find out your kid bullied someone? For many parents, the first step is forcing an apology. While this response is of course warranted, is it really effective? Some might argue that there are more constructive ways of handling the situation that teach a kid not only what they did wrong, but how to make things right again.

Single dadPatrick Forseth recently shared how he made a truly teachable moment out of his son, Lincoln, getting into trouble for bullying. Rather than forcing an apology, Forseth made sure his son was actively part of a solution.


The thought process behind his decision, which he explained in a now-viral TikTok video, is both simple and somewhat racial compared to how many parents have been encouraged to handle similar situations.
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Education

People are sharing the one 'simple rule that would fix the world if people actually followed it'

Here are 17 rules that would make life better for everyone.

via Pexels

A teacher lists his class rules.

The world would be a much better place if humans weren’t so … human. We all fall short of perfection. Common sense is, sadly, not too common. And there’s one guy out there who always manages to screw things up when things start getting good.

Call it Murphy’s law. Call it the great “reason we can’t have nice things.” Call it entropy. It feels like a whole lot of pain could be avoided if we all had just a little bit more sense.

But what if there was one rule that we all agreed to follow to make everyone’s life better? What would this magical rule be?

A Reddit user who goes by the name P4insplatter came to this realization and asked the AskReddit subforum, “What simple rule would fix the world if everyone actually followed it?” They received dozens of simple rules that if everyone got behind would make the world drastically better.

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Pop Culture

Heads up! That call from a panicky relative may be a scammer voice clone.

The FTC is warning people to look out for the latest scam trend.

via Pexels

A man makes a phone call from prison.

One of the oldest frauds in the book is the “your loved one is in trouble” scam. Scammers call posing as a grandchild or loved one in distress who claims they’ve been kidnapped or are in jail. The scammer may also impersonate a nurse, police officer, lawyer or other authority figure representing the loved one.

The scammer claims that the loved one needs money wired to the fraudster immediately to bring them to safety.

The scam is effective because the victim is under pressure to get them money quickly, so they don’t have time to consider the fact that it may be a scam. All the while, they imagine the torment the loved one is going through. The urgency of the scam makes it much more likely that the victim will hand over the money.

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Democracy

Afroman made a brilliant music video from clips of Ohio police's misguided raid of his home

This might be the greatest musical comeback ever.

via Wikimedia Commons

Afroman ready for the 2024 United States Presidential Election

Joseph Foreman, better known to music fans as rapper Afroman, had his Ohio home raided by Adams County Sheriff's deputies last August. The deputies were acting on a warrant claiming probable cause that drugs, drug paraphernalia, and evidence of drug trafficking and kidnapping would be found on his property.

Afroman wasn't home at the time of the raid, but his wife captured footage of it on her phone.

The deputies found nothing, confiscated over $5,000 worth of Afroman’s hard-earned money, bashed in his front door, broke his front gate and destroyed his home security camera system. No charges were filed after the raid. The money was later returned to the "Because I Got High" rapper.

“They come up here with AR-15, traumatize my kids, destroyed my property, kick in my door, rip up and destroy my camera system,” he said in August, according to Fox 19.

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