Actor Jesse Williams is teaming up with Scholly for its ‘Pay it Off Fund’ that divvies up $100,000 among four recipients to help pay down student loan debt. Williams and Christopher Gray, the founder and CEO of Scholly, joined Cheddar News to talk about the partnership to help students fund their education through Scholly's platform for seeking out scholarship information. Williams also discussed his nomination for a Tony Award in his first Broadway show, "Take Me Out."

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Jesse Williams Teams Up With Scholly on ‘Pay It Off Fund’ to Alleviate Student Debt

And everyone in between Vowels and Baker Machado and New York Americans owe a total of 1.75 trillion in federal and private student loan debt combined, federal student loan debt alone totals $1.6 trillion. No data starts at a stark statistic as debt disproportionately impacts marginalized communities. And according to a recent study from the nonprofit, the Education trust, black students are much more likely to incur the largest average student loan debt out of any group in the U. S. And that includes their white peers aiming to alleviate that debt is our next guests joining us. Now, Christopher Gray Ceo and founder of Scali and also actor jesse Williams as well. Welcome to both of you guys back to cheddar news jesse. I'm gonna start with you. So you've partnered with Scali for the pay it off fun. You're awarding four recipients with up to $25,000 to go towards their student loan debt. So what inspired you to join this partnership here? Yes, thank you. And thanks for having us. Yeah, we're doing um Uh paid off program $100,000 that's split into four recipients. Hopefully we're really excited that we, we've been, you know, I've done some work with scholar for for some years now and as a former product of the public school system. Horribly. Um, this under resourced school system as well as the beneficiary of some really terrific schools. Um, I have lived experience of the huge chasm that has nothing to do with the students themselves and, and, and we suffer the consequences, those of us who are under resourced. And also as a public educator, I was a high school teacher as well. So um my experience brings me to, you know, brought some real clarity to the need. Um and, and crystal what Christopher gray has created with scali is a tremendous way to directly affected and help us keep these kids in school not to let them get pushed out because of because of a green paper. Um it's pretty silly. So we're giving, you know, where this is something we're really excited about and directly affecting getting kids in school with scholarships, but also being realistic about the road ahead once they graduate, if they are able to graduate. Absolutely Christopher, let's bring you into this conversation here. You guys basically started this company back in 2015 and you actually went on shark tank and you actually pitched this to the sharks and you've got a lot of interest. You had Lori, you and Damon also interested as well. So explain to our viewers how the app sort of works here. Christopher, you might be muted chris can you unmute maybe just in case we'll see. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry about that. Okay. Um yeah, so the way scali works that started the mobile and web app that instantly helps students find money for college. So we turned the months of looking for scholarships in two minutes. So we find, you know, historically it will take student months and months to find these scholarships. So we streamline that process, but it's just you mentioned like with this partnership, we've also really, we've also started to really help people start paying out their debt through different partners and really, um and really I'm really kind of addressing this huge student loan debt crisis, right? So um but using technology, using our platform, we're not only able to match students with these scholarships and student loan payoffs were now really able to help facilitate, you know, funding and create new funding to also help more students pay for college, but also um now helping helping more students be able to pay off their student debt. Okay, so jesse, how how does this essentially work? How can students get involved with the payoff fund here? Well, you can go to my scholarly dot com and we also have a lot of promotions by our social media on instagram and twitter and you submit a video and there's a very there's a very clear set of parameters to to apply and and we're the we're overloaded with with applicants which speaks to the need that we're addressing. So we're really excited about it. And this is one of many initiatives that that that scali sets up. We don't just um, you know, kind of structurally set folks up for success. We think about innovative ways to use technology creatively to position young people to be able to function um in society while they're trying to get an education and not be totally burdened down by their debt. It's, it's it's hard, I I can relate to remember, you know, choosing, you know, meals or bills or rent and knowing when your student loans are doing, trying to decide which bills need to get paid first um, and incurring an immense amount of interest and and and further debt. So we're, we're trying to meet folks exactly where they are based on experiences that we know pretty well. Look at Christopher, we know a lot of people waiting to sort of get some guidance maybe from the White House about what President biden's plan will be when it comes to student debt, but for those that don't want to wait around for politics, why was it sort of important for you guys to launch this program now to sort of help a lot of these people who jesse mentioned are really struggling right now. So, so I think, I mean really it's just that we want to do something, but I'm running our amount is we, we match students with scholarships, but we all understand that not only have a lot of students have graduated graduated away before scholar existed, but you know, that we, you know, we can't just wait on the government to really solve this issue. So one of the reasons why we're working with people like jesse is because they have a platform and our goal is that we hope that other celebrities, other brands really want to tackle the issues as well and we hope that we can work with others who are willing to leverage our scholars technology to be able to streamline and be able to create more and more of these funds to be able to help really address this issue because I think that they're gonna announce in a few weeks some maybe some sort of forgiveness, but I don't, I'm not sure it's certain that I'm pretty sure he won't like just erase the issue. So we really hope that it's really important for what we're doing is just a small step and we hope that this encourages other brands, other companies to um to just really just have this social responsibility to be able to do that themselves. And we welcome other partners who want to work with us to help you know, help impact even more people. Yeah. And somebody who's, my husband has so much student loan debt will be paying that off for the rest of time. It feels like I'm always happy to see people taking initiatives to find other ways to help people alleviate that debt Jessie while I have you, I want to say congratulations on your incredible Tony nominated performance and take me out. It's getting incredible reviews. What was it like when you finally heard your name mentioned as being a Tony nominee here. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. It's all, it's all really surreal This is a series of firsts for me, it's my first time uh in a, in a, in a play and being on broadway and we're working so hard and it's really a testament to our, our collective team. It is a really terrific material starts with the writer Richard Greenberg on up through our director, scott Ellis and um I'm just, it's really humbling and we just try to put together, you know, it's interesting because we still have to put together eight shows a week. So I gotta go to work after this and get on stage and make it real for everybody that comes through. So I'm I'm really, really honored and thankful to the entire broadway community for welcoming me and and and letting me play around a little bit. And by the way, we we just saw a photo of Jesse Tyler Ferguson who's also in this with you. He also weirdly nominated in the same category as you. Do you worry almost you have to wait a few extra seconds if they say your name or his name to find out what the last name is, who gets the award away right now. That's funny. Well, I will assume it's him. That's but when in doubt, I assume it's Jesse Tyler Ferguson who's one of my favorite people on the planet with Without a doubt though, Everybody has to take me out Christopher Gray Ceo and founder of Scali and actor Jesse Williams. Great to have both of you guys here.