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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Nike co-founder and Chairman Philip Knight has made a $400 million donation to Stanford University [npr.org] to fund a scholarship program. The donation represents one of the largest ever individual contributions to a university:

The gift, announced today, is one of the largest ever [philanthropy.com] from an individual donor to a university. It also "represents the largest single increase in student financial aid in Stanford's history," according to a statement from the university [stanford.edu].

The Knight-Hennessy Scholars program "will be analogous to the Rhodes and Shwarzman scholarships," the Stanford Daily reports [stanforddaily.com]. It is supported by a $750 million endowment, Stanford says, the majority of which is from Knight's gift.

Stanford says the program, which provides funding for at least three years of graduate-level study, will admit 100 scholars annually.

[...] "This is using education to benefit mankind and I think it really could be transformative," Knight told The New York Times [nytimes.com]. "I jumped on it right away." Knight also recently donated [ohsu.edu] $500 million to the Oregon Health & Science University for cancer research. In 2013, he challenged the university [fortune.com] to raise $500 million in two years, which he said he would match. The university said last June it reached that goal.

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