MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Carnegie Mellon University has received the largest single donation in the history of American higher education - $3 billion. It's the latest in a series of big donations to the country's top colleges. NPR's Elissa Nadworny covers higher ed, and she's here to tell us more about this. Good morning, Elissa.
ELISSA NADWORNY, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So would you just start by telling us who made this gift and why?
NADWORNY: So the historic donation comes from Kenneth Griffin. He's a hedge fund executive. He's a Harvard alum, but he's been in talks with Carnegie Mellon for over two years about this. Here's Griffin talking about his motivation for the donation on CNBC.
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KENNETH GRIFFIN: Higher education's been under attack in the last two years in the United States, but we need to elevate higher education in our country. This is the on-ramp to the American dream for the youth of our country.
NADWORNY: So about a billion dollars of that money is going to go towards CMU's Pittsburgh campus, including its computer science school, which will be named for Griffin. The other $2 billion will go towards a campus in Miami. The University says this new branch will, quote, "invert the higher education model." And it's not going to be organized by traditional academic majors. Instead, they'll organize around themes, what they're calling societal challenges - human health and biology, national security, energy and climate resilience and advanced manufacturing. Now, there's very few concrete details, but the idea is that CMU Miami will be a totally different model.
MARTIN: Let's just go back to the gift and give us the context for a gift of this size.
NADWORNY: Well, it's still relatively rare to see these big dollar donations, but it is happening more and more. This donation surpassed the $2 billion gift that Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny Knight, gave to Oregon Health and Science University last year. They also recently gave another billion dollars to the University of Oregon for a new engineering college. In 2024, Ruth Gottesman gave $1 billion to cover tuition and perpetuity at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx. Most big donations have specific priorities, often a new building or a program, and plenty of them come with naming rights.
MARTIN: And I'm just wondering here if the size of these donations reflects the fact that we have an economy - a small group of people who own a tremendous amount of wealth.
NADWORNY: Yeah. That's exactly right, Michel. In 2025, philanthropic gifts to American colleges and universities were up, totaling more than $78 billion. But the total number of donors decreased for the fourth straight year. The donors dropping out are those individuals who give smaller gifts, often less than a thousand dollars, which means an overwhelming percentage of higher education's philanthropic support comes from a small number of super-rich people. Last year, 89% of the funds received were donated by just 2% of donors. That's from a report by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
MARTIN: But does this mean anything for the cost of college? I mean, despite these big donations, college tuition for many students is very high - something I know very well, having just experienced this myself.
NADWORNY: Yeah. Now, most Americans don't pay those big sticker prices, but that doesn't mean families aren't struggling to pay for college, like you said. And in the world of higher ed fundraising, financial aid and scholarships remain a big priority. It's unclear how many, if any, of the Griffin money will go towards scholarships. At Carnegie Mellon University, tuition is almost $70,000 a year.
Now, the CMU president did signal that he would use part of this week's gift to make the university more affordable for students, but he didn't detail those plans. And all this comes as colleges continue to close and cut back programs and staff due to lower enrollment and other financial challenges.
Now, Michel, I will say, big picture, that these big donations signal a continued belief in higher education in scientific discovery, economic mobility by these very wealthy donors. And many of them, like Griffin did, acknowledge that higher ed and its funding streams, especially those coming from the federal government, have been at risk.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Elissa Nadworny. Elissa, thank you.
NADWORNY: Thanks, Michel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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