More than 44 million people in the United States owe student loan debts that amount to $1.56 trillion collectively, according to statistics published by the online platform Student Loan Hero in February 2019. The same study shows that student loan debt is now the country’s second highest consumer debt category, following just behind mortgage debt and surpassing total credit card payments owed by about $521 billion.

Graduate Hotels, a collection of boutique properties based in college towns across the United States, has pledged to fund-raise upwards of $150,000 to help support student and alumni debt relief. Dubbed the “$150K Payoff,” the initiative is in partnership with scholarship search app Scholly, which received national attention in 2015 after landing a deal on ABC’s Shark Tank (and has helped students earn over $100 million in scholarships to date). Beginning September 1 through December 31, 2019, various properties from the Graduate Hotels collection will host a range of fundraising efforts within their respective communities.

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