Alumnus John Paulson is donating $400 million to Harvard University, the largest gift in the 379 year old school’s history and among the biggest ever to a U.S. university, the school said Wednesday.
The money will be used to endow Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which will be renamed after Mr. Paulson.
This “extraordinary gift will enable the growth and ensure the strength of engineering and applied sciences at Harvard for the benefit of generations to come, ” said Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust.
Will you offer us a hand? Every gift, regardless of size, fuels our future.
Your critical contribution enables us to maintain our independence from shareholders or wealthy owners, allowing us to keep up reporting without bias. It means we can continue to make Jewish Business News available to everyone.
You can support us for as little as $1 via PayPal at office@jewishbusinessnews.com.
Thank you.
The Founder and president of Paulson & Co., graduated from Harvard’s Business School in 1980 and founded his firm in 1994.
Paulson’s fortune was made in 2007 when he collected $15 billion on bets that the housing market would collapse. He personally earned almost $4 billion.
In 2011, Paulson earned $4.9 billion according to Business Insider. As of March 2014, Forbes estimates his net worth at $13.5 billion.
In a statement released today, Mr. Paulson said that the money will provide “a solid endowment for faculty development, research, scholarships and financial aid.”
The last largest gift in the history of Harvard came from alumni hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin, an endowment of $36 billion. In 2014, he donated $150 million.
A few months later Gerald Chan donated $350 million to its school of public health.
