Nike cofounder Phil Knight is donating $400 million to Stanford University to help create the largest fully-endowed graduate scholarship in the world.
Stanford unveiled the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program on Wednesday, Knight's 78th birthday. With donations from alumni and members of Stanford's Board of Trustees, the endowment will grow to $750 million.
The ambitious graduate-level scholarship program will be used to tackle global challenges including climate change and poverty, and was the brainchild of outgoing Stanford President John Hennessy, who approached Knight about the idea.
With a $750m endowment, #KHScholars will be the largest fully endowed graduate scholarship program in the world. pic.twitter.com/C2cWXee2JT— Stanford University (@Stanford) February 24, 2016
The program will be larger in scope than the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford University, and will cover full tuition and boarding costs for 100 American and international students beginning in 2018, The New York Times reported.
“This is using education to benefit mankind and I think it really could be transformative,” Knight told the Times. “I jumped on it right away.”
The gift from Knight is the largest cash donation from an individual in Stanford history, and matches the previous largest individual donation ever given to any university, a $400 million donation made by John A. Paulson to the Harvard University School of Engineering in June 2015.
The #KHScholars program will prepare global leaders to address society's biggest challenges. https://t.co/ZOQEioIZH3https://t.co/aU9SgBdfQc— Stanford University (@Stanford) February 24, 2016
Knight, who received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, has previously broken records with his philanthropic contributions to the university. In 2006, Knight's $105 million contribution became the largest individual donation made ever made to an American business school, and saw the Stanford business school campus named the "The Knight Management Center" in recognition of the gift.
Additional reporting by Olivia Niland