In 2019 — the same year Scott and her ex-husband, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, divorced — she pledged to give away most of her wealth. Scott’s fortune is estimated to be worth $40.2 billion, according to Bloomberg.
On Tuesday, Xavier University of Louisiana announced it had received a $38 million donation from Scott.
And just last week, six HBCUs announced they had gotten unrestricted donations from Scott, ranging from $19 million at Philander Smith University, a small private nonprofit, to $63 million each to Prairie View A&M University and North Carolina A&T State University, public institutions with thousands of students.
So far, Howard University, in Washington, D.C., has garnered the largest donation among Scott’s recent gifts to HBCUs. The philanthropist gifted the research university $80 million, earmarking $17 million of that amount for its medical college.
Most of the HBCUs have received gifts from Scott before.
Scott has made mass donations to higher education institutions in previous years — by 2021, she had given at least $1.5 billion total to roughly six dozen institutions. Her other rounds of donations have likewise focused on minority-serving institutions, such as Hispanic-serving institutions and HBCUs.
Below, we’re rounding up colleges that have received gifts from Scott in her latest donation spree. Let us know if we’ve missed any announcements.
