Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott had been giving out major donations again and one of her biggest recent gifts went to Howard University. The school said on Sunday that Scott, who was worth about $35.6 billion, donated a total of $80 million to support students, research and the school’s future.
A Huge Boost When Howard Needed It Most
Howard explained that $63 million went directly to the university and $17 million went to its College of Medicine. School leaders said it was one of the largest single gifts in Howard’s 158-year history.
Wayne A.I. Frederick, Howard’s interim president and president emeritus, said in a statement, “This historic investment will not only help maintain our current momentum but will help support essential student aid, advance infrastructure improvements and build a reserve fund to further sustain operational continuity, student success, academic excellence and research innovation.”
The timing mattered a lot. Because of the federal government shutdown that started Oct. 1, the school’s regular federal funding had been delayed. Almost 95% of non–student-aid staff in the Department of Education were furloughed.
That meant new grant awards were paused, leaving key programs stuck in uncertainty. One of the biggest programs on hold was the HBCU Capital Financing Program which helped pay for upgrades on HBCU campuses.
It hit especially hard because the Department of Education had already said in September that HBCUs and tribally controlled colleges and universities (TCCUs) would receive a $495 million increase for FY 2025. But then the shutdown froze everything. Some education experts pointed out how confusing the situation seemed.
Mike Hoa Nguyen, an associate professor of education at UCLA, told The American Prospect, “If [the Trump administration] actually … cared about HBCUs and tribal colleges, then you would not see such a big attack on other sectors of higher education.”
With so much uncertainty around funding, Scott’s donation felt like a lifeline.
Scott’s Recent DEI Gifts Stayed Steady
Scott’s donation to Howard wasn’t a one-off moment. She had been giving large amounts to DEI-focused groups for weeks. She gave $42 million to 10,000 Degrees, a Bay Area group that helped low-income and mostly non-white students get into and finish college.
She also made other big donations to Native student scholars and HBCU endowments through the United Negro College Fund (UNCF).
In September, she gave UNCF $70 million to help build pooled endowments across 37 HBCUs. The whole idea was to help schools grow stronger long-term, especially schools that had faced funding gaps for decades.
Then, in October, the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund announced a $40 million gift from Scott. It was double the amount she donated to them in 2021 and made up about 20% of their fundraising so far.
Even with these giant numbers, Scott said money alone didn’t show the full picture of what she was trying to do.
On Oct. 15, she wrote on her Yield Giving website, “When my next cycle of gifts is posted to my database online, the dollar total will likely be reported in the news. But any dollar amount is a vanishingly tiny fraction of the personal expressions of care being shared into the world this year.”
She added that people often underestimated “peaceful, non-transactional contribution,” writing, “The potential of peaceful, non-transactional contribution has long been underestimated, often on the basis that it is not financially self-sustaining or that some of its benefits are hard to track. But what if these imagined liabilities are actually assets?”
The situation around federal funding made Scott’s gift feel even more meaningful. Howard University said the donation had arrived at an “opportune time” and with everything paused because of the shutdown, it was clear why.
