Musician and producer Pharell Williams has given 5 students, one from North Texas, a complete debt-free college start according to a Dallas Morning News article from June 18. They say,
“Musician and producer Pharrell Williams, who wrote the 2013 blockbuster song “Happy,” made a few college students — including one from North Texas — gleeful Friday by promising to pay off their student loans.
Channing Hill of Bedford was among the five students and recent graduates from historically Black colleges and universities who received the news that their loans would be paid off while they participated in a panel discussion Friday in Washington, D.C., about the personal impact of college-loan debt.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson celebrated the students’ reactions by posting images of them, including Hill, appearing shocked and tearful at the news.
Johnson also reiterated his call for President Joe Biden’s administration to cancel student-loan debts for low-wage-earning graduates and other students, particularly those attending the nation’s 107 HBCUs.”
Meanwhile, Channing Hill was left speechless yet motivated as she opts not just to pursue her college studies but also to fight for her fellow students according to a Texas Metro News article from June 18 which reports,
“Hill, a junior Strategic Legal and Management Communications major at Howard University, had told attendees she worried that the $18,000 in student loans she had accumulated not only affected her, but also her family and sibling.
Hill said her debt likely would affect her parents’ ability to borrow money to finance her younger sister’s undergraduate studies, which begin next year.
Upon learning the news, Hill, who is president of Howard University’s NAACP student chapter and a graduate of Euless’s Trinity High School, said she was speechless. She, herself, had advocated for the Biden administration to cancel students’ federal student loan debts.
“My God. I’m still in disbelief,” Hill wrote on her Instagram feed. “Get active in this fight to cancel ALL student loans. Call Biden. Tell him it’s time.”
Just recently, Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks also emphasized the importance of erasing the student loans and even brought up the call to President Biden.
