Dr. Elfred Anthony Pinkard, president of Wilberforce University, the first private HBCU in the country
“Therefore, the Wilberforce University Board of Trustees has authorized me to forgive any debt,” said Pinkard to that day’s graduates. “Your accounts have been cleared.”
The classes of 2021 and 2020 had their debt to Wilberforce wiped clean. The room burst with applause at the news, and the video of Wilberforce's commencement went viral.
“I must tell you, and this may sound naive, but we really didn’t expect to get the kind of coverage that we got,” Pinkard told Diverse. “It just exploded. If you saw that clip, that’s exactly what I had intended. I wanted that visceral joy of students really seeing your institution cares about you.”
About $375,000 in student debt owed to Wilberforce was erased. Wilberforce had received support in part from the United Negro College Fund, a philanthropic organization that provides scholarships for Black students and general scholarship funds for 37 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The university also used some of the federal funding it received through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Graduates remained responsible for paying their federal, state, or private loans, yet their debts to Wilberforce were gone.
“The impetus was that these classes had soldiered through COVID,” said Pinkard. “These were the young people who were consistent through that difficult time. So, we asked ourselves what we could do.”
Many of the graduates who had their debt forgiven have gone on to graduate and professional schools. Their sense of relief was palpable.
