Kluge to donate at least 400 million to university

Colleges & Universities A-Z Columbia University
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<p>From WSJ <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117624800578765660.html?mod=djemalert%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117624800578765660.html?mod=djemalert&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Kluge Plans to Donate
At Least $400 Million
To Columbia University
By SALLY BEATTY
April 10, 2007 7:47 p.m.</p>

<p>Columbia University is expected to announce Wednesday a gift of at least $400 million, possibly as much as $600 million, from media entrepreneur John W. Kluge, according to two people familiar with the donation. It is among the largest single gifts to higher education. The amount will depend on the eventual value of Mr. Kluge's estate at the time of his death.</p>

<p>Mr. Kluge, 92 years old, has earmarked the gift for undergraduate and graduate financial aid, according to these people. That is consistent with his past record of giving to the Manhattan-based university. In 1993, he pledged $60 million to provide financial aid through the Kluge Scholars program to minority students at Columbia, and in 2000 he gave $25 million to subsidize junior-faculty salaries. Over the years, his giving to Columbia has totaled more than $110 million. A Columbia spokeswoman declined to comment.</p>

<p>It is believed to be the largest single gift in the history of Columbia, which recently announced a $4 billion fund-raising campaign emphasizing financial aid and endowed faculty across its campuses. A year ago, the university received a gift of over $200 million from Dawn Greene and the Jerome L. Greene Foundation to create the Jerome L. Greene Science Center for Mind, Brain and Behavior.</p>

<p>A German immigrant, Mr. Kluge attended Columbia on an academic scholarship, graduating in 1937. One person who knows him says he has always felt grateful to Columbia for that aid, and believes that helping students today is an extension of the support received by earlier generations of European immigrants.</p>

<p>Mr. Kluge began building his entertainment empire in 1947 with the acquisition of a radio station in Silver Spring, Md. It later grew to include television stations, outdoor advertising, cellular telephone properties and even the Ice Capades and Harlem Globetrotters.</p>

<p>Mr. Kluge was one of the first media entrepreneurs to demonstrate that a group of independent TV stations could make millions of dollars, according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago. His Metromedia Inc. pioneered independent-station operations through the 1960s and 1970s. In 1986, Mr. Kluge agreed to sell seven Metromedia TV stations for nearly $2 billion to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.</p>

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<p>Isn't that the largest donation ever by a single person to a university in the United States?</p>

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<p>Pocket change.</p>

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<p>Awesome!!! That's so exciting!!</p>

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<p>lol wow................... and who says alumni giving at Columbia is low?? XD.</p>

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<p>seriously. in your mouth, JohnnyK.</p>

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<p>Kluge is my new hero.</p>

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<p>great news, but it seems like it'll only be donated when he dies. or did i misread that one?</p>

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<p>Yeah, final value based on his estate at death. But, hopefully this means that I won't be paying through my nose next year.</p>

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<p>He's 92, so it's not like it'll be a long wait. Promising that a lot of it will go to international financial aid, as the lack of money in that department has been one of the few things holding Columbia back.</p>

<p>From Spec:</p>

<p>Kluge to Donate $400 Million for Financial Aid
Bollinger Confirms Gift, Largest in University's History
By Josh Hirschland and Alexander Peacocke</p>

<p>University President Lee Bollinger confirmed that Columbia will announce a $400 million gift from the estate of John Kluge in an interview tonight.</p>

<p>The gift will go towards improving the University's financial aid offerings. The donation is the largest ever made to Columbia, which is double the amount given to the University by the estate of Jerome L. Greene for a Mind, Brain, and Behavior Center last year.</p>

<p>"John deserves the eternal gratitude of Columbia," Bollinger said, calling the donation "a colossal step forward." </p>

<p>The donation will be bequeathed upon the 92-year-old media mogul's death. It is divided into two portions-$200 million will be allocated to Columbia College while the other half will be distributed across the rest of the institution. </p>

<p>Bollinger said that he was "reasonably confident" that a "reasonable portion" of the funds will be allocated to international student aid. He said that the announcement comes before many of the details as to how the gift will be spent have been settled. </p>

<p>"Part of his thinking here is, 'I want to make this pledge now, and I want it to be known even though there are some things that will remain up for conversation in the future,'" Bollinger said.</p>

<p>The president said that the donation will not solve the financial aid problems that Columbia faces. "Our hope is that this will stimulate others to do the same, and that's John's intention."</p>

<p>The donation will officially be announced tomorrow in Low Library at 11:45 a.m.</p>

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<p>Here's the article from the New York Times.
It seems like the $400 million is the largest gift ever from a single person to a US university.
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/nyregion/11columbia.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/nyregion/11columbia.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Columbia to Receive Its Largest Gift, $400 Million for Student Aid</p>

<p>By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: April 11, 2007</p>

<p>Columbia University will announce a gift of $400 million today, one of the largest ever to an American university, from John Werner Kluge, 92, a billionaire who has long been one of the university’s strongest supporters.</p>

<p>Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, said last night: “Obviously, this is an extraordinary gift by any standard. It’s huge in its consequences and effects on the university.”</p>

<p>The gift, which is to come from Mr. Kluge’s estate when he dies, is to be used for financial aid to students, officials said. More commonly, philanthropic donations are used to pay for a new building or endow a chair.</p>

<p>Mr. Kluge had previously given Columbia $110 million, including his Kluge Scholars Program, which has supported more than 500 Columbia College students. It provides four-year scholarships to 40 to 60 needy students a year, chosen by the admissions office.</p>

<p>At Columbia’s 2004 black-tie celebration of the program and his 90th birthday, Mr. Kluge discussed his commitment to scholarships.</p>

<p>“I’d rather by far invest in people than buildings,” he said. “If I can infuse a mind to improve itself, that’ll pass on to their children, and to their children’s children.” He also reflected on the financial aid he received at Columbia: “If it hadn’t been for Columbia, my path in life would have been completely different.”</p>

<p>Last night, Mr. Bollinger said of Mr. Kluge: “The idea of financial aid for needy students is just part of his core. He has a deep desire to improve things.”</p>

<p>Mr. Bolinger said half of the $400 million would go to scholarships for undergraduates at Columbia College, and the other half to scholarships and fellowships in other parts of the university.</p>

<p>The announcement comes in the first year after Columbia announced a $4 billion fund-raising campaign emphasizing financial aid and endowed faculty across its schools and campuses.</p>

<p>Nearly every institution of higher learning feels an urgency to raise funds, but the pressure on Columbia is particularly acute since it competes against the wealthiest universities in the country. Last year, its endowment was more than $5 billion, one of the largest in the country but still behind other Ivy League universities.</p>

<p>Until now, the largest gift in the university’s history was slightly more than $200 million, from the Jerome L. Greene Foundation and Mr. Greene’s widow, Dawn M. Greene.</p>

<p>Mr. Kluge was born in Chemnitz, Germany, grew up in Detroit, and won a scholarship that allowed him to attend Columbia, where he graduated in 1937, majoring in economics.</p>

<p>Mr. Kluge made his fortune as a broadcasting entrepreneur, building his multimedia company, Metromedia, into the nation’s largest television business before selling his television stations to Rupert Murdoch in 1986 — stations that became the core of Fox News — and then turning his attention, increasingly, to philanthropy.</p>

<p>In 2000 Mr. Kluge gave $73 million to the Library of Congress for a scholarly center and other projects, including the creation of a $1 million John W. Kluge Prize for the study of humanity, intended for areas that the Nobel prizes do not cover, like political science, sociology and philosophy.</p>

<p>In recent years Mr. Kluge sold his 78,000-acre Scottish estate and a London townhouse and a home in Munich, and donated his Virginia farm with 35 outbuildings and thousands of acres to the University of Virginia.</p>

<p>Last year, Mr. Kluge was ranked 25th on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans, with an estimated fortune of $9.1 billion. Mr. Kluge has three children and has been divorced three times; he is now married to Maria Tussi Kluge.</p>

<p>According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the largest gift to a private university was last year’s $1 billion endowment from the Anil Agarwal Foundation to establish Vedanta University in India.</p>

<p>In the United States, the California Institute of Technology received gifts totaling $600 million in 2001 from Gordon and Betty Moore and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. That same year, Stanford University received a $400 million gift from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. In 1997, the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering received $460 million from the F. W. Olin Foundation.</p>

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<p>I bet Kluge Scholars are really proud of their program's name now, ^^. I wish Obama were as enthusiastic about CU as John Kluge.</p>

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<p>Does anyone know if this will be counted towards endowment?</p>

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<p>Just reading on Bwog that this donation puts Columbia $2billion+ in its $4billion fundraising campaign. So given last year Columbia's endowment was $5.94 billion, let's assume it rose 15% due to investments and assessts = $6.83billion for this year. In 3 more years assuming it maintains (doubtful) a 15% return that'd be $9.03billion. To be reasonable- Columbia's money managing sucks so let's just assume that's $8 billion in 3 years. NOW, if you add the $4billion fundraising due to end in that time... $8 + $4 => $12,000,000,000 which definitely puts us within striking distance of Stanford and Princeton =PPP haha just saying...</p>

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<p>If their money management is bad why don't they just fire the person in charge of it and employ the most expensive person they can get?</p>

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<p>the management of the endowment is excellent, it consistently beats the market by a wide margin, but with lower variance than a hedge fund.</p>

<p>they're just not as good as harvard's guy (who made something like $60M last year, he was that good at investing). there's a wikipedia page that shows the CAGR of endowments over the last X years, columbia does well but not as well as some of the other ivies.</p>

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<p>Columbia's careful money management comes at the expense of funds for things like dorm renovations and student activities. The endowment figure has always been more important to Columbia than what it's used for...</p>

<p>But who cares if my bathroom ceiling collapses, as long as we climb US News, right?</p>

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<p>I thought you're an alumnus, no?</p>

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<p>Not for another four weeks or so...</p>

<p>But for the record, I don't wish bathroom ceiling collapses on future Columbians, either.</p>

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<p>haha congrats columbia2007. have fun at HLS! Hmm ceiling collapses in John Jay- well at least now i know where to avoid =)</p>