Robert Smith Will Also Help Students With Loan Debt

A few weeks ago, billionaire Robert Smith stunned the Morehouse College class of 2019 by announcing he’d be paying their student loan debt. Now Smith has announced he will help 1,000 students find internships.

InternX, created under Smith’s Fund II Foundation, says it’s looking for 1,000 students from “ethnically underrepresented groups” to intern. The program is specifically targeting students interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). Internships can be an important stepping stone into a full-time career. Smith’s program will create a database of hopeful interns, which will be accessible to STEM companies offering summer internships.

Smith’s program launched last year and placed 70 interns in STEM internships for the summer. Smith is thinking big and hopes to help 10,000 students land internships by 2020.

(Photo Credit: Morehouse College)

“We have to create the environment for them [young adults] to share themselves, their ideas and their thoughts,” Smith said in a promotional video for internX. “It could be a $100,000 thought that day and a $10 billion through the next.”

Smith is hoping his philanthropy will inspire others to give back. When he announced he was paying student loan debt for Morehouse’s 2019 grads, he told them he expected them to “pay it forward” when they created their own fortunes in the future.