For These Colleges, MacKenzie Scott’s Hundreds of Millions in Gifts Mean ‘the Space to Dream’

Unexpected emails and phone calls brought the news. The unbelievable news. The can-you-repeat-that-figure news. The billionaire MacKenzie Scott was donating seven- and eight-figure sums to community colleges, tribal institutions, and minority-serving campuses — a rarity in higher-education philanthropy, which so often sees highly selective institutions receiving the eye-popping gifts.

Now, in the weeks after the announcement by Scott — a philanthropist and author who used to be married to the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — administrators and professors on these campuses are deciding how to best deploy the money. New professorships. Scholarships to boost retention. A bigger endowment.

As a graduate student, Octavia Lawrence, now associate dean of student services at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, would ask herself what she would do with $1 million in extra funding. How could she better meet student needs?

That question is no longer hypothetical. The college, which received $15 million from Scott, is aiming to supply technology and possibly transportation for students in rural areas, as well as funding for nonacademic needs, as part of a wide-reaching plan presented by the president shortly after the announcement.

“It actually gives us the space to dream with action in mind,” Lawrence said. “To not just dream.”

Scott’s gifts, which total more than $4.1 billion to 384 organizations over the last four months, come as foundations and philanthropists grapple with national racial inequities, wondering how to better support traditionally underfunded institutions. For years, the vast majority of big gifts to colleges went to highly selective institutions that enroll proportionally fewer low-income students — $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University in 2018, $750 million to the California Institute of Technology in 2019, $400 million to Harvard University in 2015.

But recently, some donors and businesses have put their money elsewhere. Robert F. Smith in 2019 said he would pay off the student loans of 400 Morehouse College graduates. The leader of Netflix and his wife in June gave $40 million each to Spelman and Morehouse Colleges and to UNCF. In September, Dominion Energy announced it would donate $25 million to 11 historically Black universities. The Washington Post found that hundreds of millions of dollars of Scott’s $4.1 billion will go to colleges.

Scott’s team worked to “identify organizations with high potential for impact” and gave the money up front, with no strings attached, according to her blog post announcing the donations. They didn’t have to ask for the money — which, Scott wrote, can divert staff from doing meaningful work — or undergo “burdensome reporting requirements” often requested by donors.

At West Kentucky, Anton R. Reece, the president, initially didn’t believe the gift was real. Even after an email, which he thought could be a scam, and a short phone call, he said he consulted with his legal team before providing a routing number. The night before the announcement, he couldn’t sleep, waiting and wondering.

When Scott posted the announcement publicly, it sank in. He gathered colleagues for an announcement, streamed on Facebook Live, to reveal the “historic” gift. “I’m not crying, you’re crying!” someone commented.

In the days after the announcement, Reece has sprung into action, calling the gift a “game changer.” He pitched to his board the seven-part plan including work-force training, partnerships with four-year colleges, and closer ties to community organizations to recruit and retain students of color and low-income students.

Coming up with the list of focus areas was easy, he said, after 30 years in higher education. He knew, inside and out, the challenges faced by students and the region. “I’ve been at ground zero all the way through.”

The $8 million donation to Turtle Mountain Community College, a tribal college in North Dakota, allowed its president, Donna Brown, to think more expansively about ideas for new programs that she had considered since assuming the position in October. With every new effort, Brown said she sees an opportunity to incorporate tribal culture.

Putting money toward retention programming — including opening a study center, hiring on-duty tutors, and enriching student clubs in government and research — will be one priority, she said. Turtle Mountain’s students, she added, may need different types of support than those at other universities, so campus leaders will strategize as to how to best meet their needs.

The gift could also mean full funding for a new master’s program in education, which right now has low staffing, Brown said. With more money, the college could hire more faculty members, offer convenient class times, and, possibly, provide tuition waivers and scholarships.

A seven-figure donation could change how people externally and internally perceive the college, Brown said.

“When you think about almost any entity on an Indian reservation, you think about the struggle of maintaining, getting by,” she said. “With this kind of money, I think we can hire the faculty that we need — highly qualified faculty. We can grow our own if we have people with master’s degrees that want to pursue a doctorate. And rather than being seen as constantly struggling, having really exemplary programs to offer, with all the most up-to-date equipment we need … We have this institution of excellence, right on our own Indian reservation.”

Les LaFountain, a faculty member in the social-sciences department, was shocked when he saw news of the donation in the Turtle Mountain Times, the local newspaper. “There’s got to be a catch to this,” said LaFountain, who had previously served as a board member and has taught at the college since the 1990s. But soon he started imagining the possible ways the money could make a difference.

He said he hopes that the historically underfunded college uses a portion of the money to invest in its foundation and endowment, to have sustainable resources for hard times in the future.

That’s what Alcorn State University is doing. Scott’s donations came to higher education in an unprecedented moment for public colleges, as threats of state-revenue cuts loom and enrollment managers are unsure of future student interest. The pandemic brought with it increased costs, too. Alcorn State, a historically Black university in Mississippi, took a 2.6-percent appropriations cut attributed to the pandemic, said Felecia M. Nave, the president.

Campus leaders feared having to reduce funding for scholarships, professional development, athletics, choir, and band. Scott’s $25-million gift, more than doubling the endowment, now allows the college to think more independently, she said. Returns from a bigger endowment can close the expected gaps due to the pandemic-related state cuts, she said. “Now you have a secondary source of funds that could help you.”

Nave also expects the gift to energize faculty and staff members around ideas for the university’s future. Already, she said, donations have increased from alumni and corporate donors, reflecting that excitement.

“The funds help bring your strategic plan to life,” she said. “Having the funds up front, you’re over 75 percent there. Now it’s just getting the plan in place — but you have the resources.”