Harvard: 27.4 billion
Stanford: 13.9 billion
MIT: 8.3 billion
Etc.http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2000/neurogifts.html
I guess that its top 3 still hold. In addition, I found the following:
- $1b endowment to found Vedanta University from Anil Agarwal Foundation (2006)
- $454.5m to National Taiwan University from Terry Gou (2007)
- $400m to Columbia from John Kluge (4th largest in 2007)
- $360m to RPI from an anonymous donor (page mentions largest in US history in 2001)
I could not easily find the official list all of these pages refer to, anybody has an idea?
http://chronicle.com/stats/big_gifts.htm
And here's a searchable database:
It's (I'd guess) fairly unlikely this is a standard bequest, though, given both the revokability and uncertain future tax status of that option. I imagine it would also take multiple years for an estate of that size to close and the funds to become available to CMU.
In terms of "why" of now, well, he gets to live for however much longer seeing his mom's name on a school that obviously means something to him, and as CMU is doing a big campaign, he gets to be a linchpin of that.
More details on him here: http://www.postgazette.com/pg/11250/1172681-455-0.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Abdullah_University_of_Sci...
There is something really funny about a guy with a 'not so libertarian' worldview donating 265 million to a university and a guy with a libertarian worldview that probably will never be in a position to do so commenting on that.
I will keep a keen eye out for further highly relevant dispatches from your "libertarian worldview" on other recent events, such as Operation Desert Storm, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the release of not one but two Use Your Illusion albums from Guns 'n' Roses, and the release of the SNES gaming system.