r/nextfuckinglevel 2d ago

Billionaire speaker Robert F. Smith tells 400 graduates he's paying off all their student loans ($40 million in total)

13.3k Upvotes

583 comments sorted by

View all comments

296

u/EdwardBigby 2d ago

I hope people don't take this the wrong way but as a non American I'm slightly confused why there's a college where everybody seems to be black (also an Asian lady sitting behind the speaker)

I assume it's in a mostly black area but is it a case of no white people applying for this college or the college not accepting any white people? Or maybe I'm just missing the white people

8

u/YoRt3m 2d ago

Yeah I noticed that too. I checked their website and it seems like all the photos are of black people too. a bit weird I would say, even with historical context. I assume non-black can join tho, hard to believe it's discriminatory, but still weird and obviously the other way around would be more than just "weird"

35

u/EdwardBigby 2d ago

Other commenter explained it. I had never heard of HBCUs

-14

u/YoRt3m 2d ago

Yeah me too. it makes sense. still, seperating people by color\race seems weird in modern days

6

u/jittery_raccoon 2d ago edited 2d ago

These days it's not about separation. HBCUs have built a very strong culture among HBCU alumni. So people are attending for the advantages of the community.