Commencement speeches can be incredibly motivating, especially when the speech involves you finding out that you won’t have student loan debt to worry about.

Commencement speaker and Vista Equity Partners CEO Robert F. Smith gave students at Morehouse College more than they were expecting from a speech. Smith announced during the commencement that he and his family established a grant that would pay off each and every student’s loans. This unexpected move will cost approximately $40 million, and create many happy students.

This move represents the single largest gift in Morehouse College history, and a personal achievement for Smith. “On behalf of the eight generations of my family that have been in this country, we’re gonna put a little fuel in your bus… This is my class, 2019. And my family is making a grant to eliminate their student loans”, said Smith to the applause of the crowd.

This gift can go further than meets the eye. Student loan debt is a killer of dreams in the US, and many graduates are forced to make moves that aren’t good for either themselves or the US economy. Take it from Morehouse President David A. Thomas, who explains “Many of my students are interested in going into teaching, for example, but leave with an amount of student debt that makes that untenable. In some ways, it was a liberation gift for these young men that just opened up their choices.” This is just one example of the microeconomic side of student loan debt. Being free of financial stress can make a huge difference on an individual’s life path and how it will affect society.