Alissa Quart: What billionaires don’t understand about college debt

In May, the billionaire Robert Smith was widely lauded when he announced he would pay the student debt of Morehouse College’s graduating class to the tune of $34 million. So were Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor and presidential candidate, who gave $1.8 billion to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, in 2018, and Steve Tisch, who earmarked $10 million for middle-class students at U.C.L.A. in October. Ken Langone, a founder of The Home Depot, appeared on a TV show last year