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The entertainer’s nonprofit, the Sean Anderson Foundation, has partnered with Ally Financial and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund to host the contest. The program, which started Friday and ended Sunday night, gave students from historically black colleges and universities nationwide an opportunity to plan, develop and present a business plan in front of their peers and a panel of judges. In between preparing for their presentations, students participated in sessions on financial literacy, idea pitching, and building a business model.

Today, student loan debt is the second greatest source of individual debt, only behind mortgages, according to the Federal Reserve. Something must be done about the ever-rising student debt, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) is taking the issue of financial literacy with HBCU students head-on.

This partnership, which officially began with the signing of a memorandum of understand on March 29, will strive to provide resources to those schools to encourage faculty and student STEM research.

HBCUs must galvanize and maximize their internal fundraising efforts and prove that they are working just as hard if they are to continue asking the state and federal government for support.

Davis, executive vice president and chief corporate affairs officer of RWJBarnabas Health as well as immediate past president of Executive Women of New Jersey, was given the annual award for exemplifying the late Supreme Court justice’s passion for civil rights, justice and education.

Michellene Davis, a senior executive at RWJBarnabas Health, earned the “Thurgood Marshall Award of Excellence for New Jersey.”