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<em>The Atlantic</em> Daily: Oh, the Places You’ll Go

When paying off $40 million in tuition debt for these graduating seniors still only does so much. Plus: how this space object ended up with a dark nickname, abortions or adoptions, and more

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(Morehouse College)

The commencement speaker, the billionaire Robert F. Smith, told the class of some 400 grads at the all-men’s historically black college that he would be eliminating all the graduates’ student debt—estimated at about $40 million. Black students are more likely to take out loans, and default on them, than their white peers, so the move will very directly change the future for these grads. But no amount of individual generosity can remedy a systemic problem—more than 40 million Americans have student

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