Marshall University president and wife give $50 million to expand debt-free degree program

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Marshall University President Brad Smith and his wife, Alys Smith, have donated $50 million to the university to expand a program designed to eliminate student loan debt for graduates, the school said Tuesday.

The gift, which the university called the largest ever received by the public research institution and the largest given by any sitting university president to their own school, will be directed to Marshall For All. The program allows students to combine scholarships, grants, family contributions and work opportunities to obtain a bachelor’s degree without borrowing federal or private student loans.

Nico Karagosian, president and chief executive officer of the Marshall University Foundation, described the donation as “transformative.” Marshall said it intends to scale up Marshall For All with the goal of enabling all students to graduate debt-free by its 2037 bicentennial.

“We are honored to support Marshall University and the Marshall For All program with this gift,” Brad and Alys Smith said in a statement released by the university. “Our ‘why’ is simple: to level the playing field in West Virginia and Appalachia.”

Marshall University enrolls nearly 10,000 undergraduates and about 3,000 graduate students. The Marshall For All initiative currently operates two tracks. One track covers full tuition and fees for West Virginia students whose family income is below $65,000. The other provides a debt-free bachelor’s degree and structured “real-world experience” for randomly selected students from the state or from eligible out-of-state counties within a certain distance of the Huntington campus.

Brad Smith, a former chief executive of software company Intuit, became Marshall’s president in January 2022. He announced the Marshall For All program later that year during his investiture, a ceremony the university said was timed to honor his late father’s birthday. In remarks at that event, Smith referenced his parents’ sacrifices to make college possible for their children and said he and his wife were motivated to "pay it forward."

University officials said the new endowment will expand the reach of both tracks and support the program’s administrative capacity. The school did not disclose the exact timeline for distributing the funds or the number of additional students expected to benefit immediately.

The donation comes amid continued public and political attention on the national issue of student loan burdens, college affordability and institutional efforts to reduce reliance on borrowing. Institutions across the United States have pursued targeted programs, scholarships and partnerships intended to lower or eliminate out-of-pocket costs for specific student populations, particularly low-income and in-state learners.

Marshall’s announcement frames the gift as part of a broader effort to address economic barriers in West Virginia and the surrounding Appalachian region. The university called the commitment a milestone toward its stated objective that every Marshall graduate should be able to complete a bachelor’s degree without acquiring student loan debt.

University officials said they will provide additional details about program expansion and implementation in the coming months. Brad Smith has led Marshall as president since 2022 after a career in the private sector; Alys Smith has been publicly identified by the university as a partner in the initiative and the couple jointly issued the statement accompanying the gift.

The gift was announced by the university Tuesday and reported by multiple outlets. Marshall officials characterized the donation as the largest philanthropic gift in the institution’s history and emphasized its intended impact on access and economic mobility for students from West Virginia and neighboring communities.