From India to Raleigh: One Man's Gift Erases Debt for 202 Graduates

Anil Kochhar didn’t just give a commencement speech at North Carolina State University’s Wilson College of Textiles—he rewrote the financial futures of 202 graduates in a single moment.

Standing at the podium in Reynolds Coliseum, Kochhar announced that he and his wife Marilyn would cover the final year of student loan debt for every bachelor’s and master’s degree recipient graduating from the college in 2026. For 176 undergraduates and 26 graduate students, that announcement meant an unexpected weight lifted before they’d even walked across the stage.

The gesture wasn’t random. Kochhar was honoring his father, Prakash Chand Kochhar, who arrived in Raleigh from India 80 years ago to study textile manufacturing—believed to be only the second student from India to enroll at the university. The elder Kochhar earned his bachelor’s degree in textile manufacturing in 1950 and his master’s degree two years later, launching a career that spanned multiple states and continents. Though he passed away in 1985, his legacy never stopped growing: a scholarship bearing his name has supported students for four decades.

During his speech, Anil Kochhar connected past to present with remarkable clarity.“My father could not have imagined this moment. Not just me standing here, but all of you sitting here. A new generation, shaped by a different world, but connected by the same spirit of possibility that brought him here decades ago.”The words weren’t just sentimental—they were a bridge between an immigrant’s determination and the current generation’s opportunities.

For graduates like Alyssa D’Costa, a fashion and textile management major and herself a daughter of immigrants, the impact was deeply personal.“This money helps me and my family a lot, and I’m really fortunate to have an opportunity like this,”she told the college. In a moment when student debt weighs on millions of young Americans, the gift represented something rarer: tangible freedom to chase goals without the immediate pressure of loan payments.

What Anil Kochhar remembers most about his father speaks to why this act mattered.“The look in his eyes told me anything is possible.”In May 2026, standing in that coliseum, he proved his father’s spirit right—by making the impossible possible for 202 students.