r/nextfuckinglevel • u/matori_tester • 2d ago

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

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u/b00c 2d ago edited 1d ago

I can't relate. Around here education isn't a privilege of the rich ones.

e: priviledge lol. i speak languages, you know.

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u/SchorFactor 1d ago

Bro what? That’s like hearing about someone delivering food to starving children and being like, “Yeah but I have food and all the children I know do too.”

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u/ayay25 1d ago

No it’s not. He’s saying that education shouldn’t be kept behind a paywall. If it was treated like in inalienable right for all like it should be then what this billionaire is doing wouldn’t be necessary nor celebrated

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u/SchorFactor 1d ago

You’re right, it should be free. But it’s not, and this is still a good action.

That’s why I used that example. The starving kids shouldn’t be starving, but they are. Helping them is still a good action.

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u/ayay25 1d ago edited 1d ago

Both things can be true at the same time. He’s not wrong to point out that this is a bandaid fix on something that requires surgery. You’re not wrong that it’s a nice act in a vacuum. With context, the nice act still does nothing to fix the underlying problem.

It’s like the story of the elementary school student raising money to pay off his classmate’s school lunch debt. We celebrate the kid being willing to do that… but why the fuck does a kid need to pay for other kid’s lunches in the first place? Celebrating the feel good story draws attention away from the fact that the adults in the system failed all of these kids in the first place.

Downvote all you want brother. You’re wrong here.