Last Updated on: 5th July 2023, 09:05 am
The ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on Tuesday donated $40 million each to two state universities in Florida that have a history of promoting social mobility and training students from communities traditionally underserved by higher education and a community college in South Florida.
Philanthropist Mackenzie Scott and her current husband Dan Jewett have made donations to Florida International University in Miami and the University of Central Florida in Orlando with no restrictions on their uses, school officials said.
They also donated at an amount that Broward College in South Florida was not immediately aware of.
In the case of UCF, the donation was the largest in the school’s 58-year history. The gifts to Florida universities were part of $2.7 billion in donations to 286 organizations that Scott announced Tuesday.
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It was Scott’s third major philanthropic fundraising round that competes alongside the charitable contributions from large foundations. In 2020, Scott made two similar surprise announcements in which he donated a total of $6 billion to fund COVID-19 relief, gender equality, historically black colleges and universities, and other schools.
“Higher education is a proven route to opportunity, so we looked to 2- and 4-year institutions that successfully educate students from communities that are chronically underserved,” Scott said on Tuesday in a blog post for Medium.
The FIU has awarded more bachelor’s degrees to Hispanic students than any other institution in the country. About 85% of FIU students are minority and more than 66% are Hispanic, according to the school.
“This generous gift marks a turning point for the FIU and the success of our students for future generations,” said Mark Rosenberg, President of the FIU.
“Ms. Scott, Mr. Jewett, and their team took note of our work, serving a diverse student body, developing evidence-based strategies that have been shown to be effective in helping our students succeed.”
This gift enables us to create programs to expand that we know work, develop models that can be replicated elsewhere, empower communities and fight poverty.
The grant will help UCF achieve its goal of becoming the world’s leading public urban research university, said UCF President Alexander Cartwright. The school will use the donation for programs to help students achieve success in college and fund research for professors, Cartwright said.
“Although our resources are finite, we can accelerate and intensify our impact with the help of others. I hope that our students and friends, along with Ms. Scott and Mr. Jewett, will help lay the foundations for the future of the UCF,” said Cartwright.
Because every new dollar enables us to make new discoveries on distant planets and to solve problems here on earth.
Every new investment like this offers students the opportunity to be the first in their families to graduate, creating a generational change for their families and communities.
UCF is one of the largest universities in the United States with a student body of more than 66,000 students.
Details of the Broward College Sweepstakes were not posted in Scott’s blog post.
A spokeswoman for the school never answered an email or a phone call.
