A year after insurance magnate Peter Lewis '55 donated $101 million to the University, Columbia has announced its largest-ever donation, nearly four times the size of Lewis'.
Media entrepreneur John Kluge, a member of Columbia's class of 1938, has pledged to give his alma mater $400 million for financial aid upon his death, the school said yesterday.
The gift is "the largest ever devoted exclusively to student aid and the fourth largest ever to any single institution of higher education in the United States," the Chronicle of Higher Education reported yesterday.
Wendell Collins, communications director of the University's development office, said that Princeton was happy to learn of the donation.
"It's very significant," Collins said. "Any school would be thrilled to receive a gift of that magnitude — we're very pleased for Columbia. It's significant for Columbia, and it's significant for higher education, and the fact that it's dedicated solely for financial aid is extremely significant."
Collins stressed, though, that Princeton's aid program is strong even without a similar windfall. "We already have the best financial aid program in the country," she said.
Kluge's gift brings Columbia's capital campaign fundraising to 55 percent of its total. The campaign, publicly launched last September, aims to raise $4 billion. It also aims to eliminate financial aid loans in favor of grants for students whose families earn less than $50,000 a year, beginning in the 2007-08 academic year.
Kluge previously gave $110 million to Columbia for scholarship programs between 1987 and 1993.
President Tilghman announced last month that the University's capital campaign will be officially launched in the fall. The campaign is expected to aim at least $1.5 billion.
Princeton was the first school in the nation to make the switch from loans to grants for all students on financial aid, making the change in 2001. Last year, Harvard, Stanford and Penn followed Old Nassau's lead, announcing grant-based aid programs, though all three schools still include a loan component in their financial aid packages. North Carolina's Davidson College — often labeled the "Princeton of the South" — announced this March that, beginning with the 2007-08 academic year, its financial aid packages will include only grants and no loan component.
Despite the University's financial aid trendsetting, the largest donations in Princeton's history — the $101 million Lewis gift in 2005 and a $100 million gift in 1995 from entrepreneur Gordon Wu '58 — rank well below the largest single private gifts to universities nationwide. The list of record-setting donations includes a 2001 gift of $400 million to Stanford and a $295 million gift to Emory University in 1996.
Still, Collins stressed that Princeton boasts one of the strongest rates of participation in annual giving among its alumni. Overall, 60 percent of alums donate to the University, with a 66 percent participation rate among the youngest alumni classes. Donations to the Annual Giving program cover University operating expenses and financial aid, Collins said.
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