The City University of New York today celebrated a historic $50 million gift to Lehman College from the MacKenzie Scott Foundation, the single largest donation in the school’s history. The gift, which was announced today at an event at Lehman College, builds on the MacKenzie Scott Foundation’s investment in CUNY, a total of nearly $130 million across five campuses including $80 million to Lehman.
Over the past five years, the MacKenzie Scott Foundation has gifted:
- $30 million to Lehman College in 2020;
- $30 million to Borough of Manhattan Community College in 2020;
- $15 million to Hostos Community College in 2021;
- $2 million to the Graduate Center’s College Access: Research and Action in 2022;
- $1 million to the CUNY School of Law and CLEAR in 2023;
- $50 million to Lehman College in 2025.
“I thank MacKenzie Scott for her generous support to CUNY, totaling nearly $130 million over the last five years across five campuses, including Lehman College,” said CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. “These record-setting gifts are an investment in CUNY’s work to propel our students into successful careers and ensure their success long after they’ve graduated. As we look forward to a new year, we are excited to put this support to good use, deepening the impact on our students and meeting their needs in and out of the classroom.”
Image caption: Lehman College President Fernando Delgado & CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez holding check for $50 million dollars from the MacKenzie Scott Foundation.
“This is a tremendous investment in our students by MacKenzie Scott. It recognizes how hard our students work to build a better life for themselves, their families, and their entire community. We are enormously grateful to be trusted to steward this gift and help the people of The Bronx and beyond,” said Lehman College President Fernando Delgado. “This gift will enable us to secure our mission long into the future and give us the flexibility and foundation to deliver on our promise to our students.”
The money will be used in several areas that provide student support, including scholarships and career pathways under the University’s newest career initiative, CUNY Beyond.
The latest gift to Lehman will support students who are often the first in their families to attend college and come from households earning less than $30,000 a year. Two-thirds of the student population at Lehman College come from the Bronx, which is the county with the lowest per capita income in New York. Despite these barriers, Lehman College graduates have been recognized nationally and the College has been named a leader in social mobility and affordability by Forbes, U.S. News & World Report and the Wall Street Journal.
About the City University of New York
The City University of New York (CUNY) is the nation’s largest urban public university, a transformative engine of social mobility that is a critical component of the lifeblood of New York City.
Founded in 1847 as the nation’s first free public institution of higher education, CUNY today has seven community colleges, 11 senior colleges and eight honors, graduate and professional institutions spread across New York City’s five boroughs, serving nearly 240,000 undergraduate and graduate students and awarding 50,000 degrees each year.
CUNY’s mix of quality and affordability propels almost six times as many low-income students into the middle class and beyond as all the Ivy League colleges combined.
More than 80 percent of the University’s graduates stay in New York, contributing to all aspects of the city’s economic, civic and cultural life and diversifying the city’s workforce in every sector. CUNY’s graduates and faculty have received many prestigious honors, including 13 Nobel Prizes and 26 MacArthur “genius” grants.
The University’s historic mission continues to this day: provide a first-rate public education to all students, regardless of means or background.
About Lehman College
Lehman College is the City University of New York’s only four-year college in the Bronx, serving the borough and surrounding region as an intellectual, economic, and cultural center.
Lehman provides undergraduate and graduate studies in the liberal arts and sciences and professional education within a dynamic research environment. With a diverse student body of more than 14,000 students and more than 81,000 alumni, Lehman offers more than 90 undergraduate and graduate programs.
Ranked as having the fourth highest mobility rate in the nation by the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Equality of Opportunity Project, Lehman is a proud catalyst for economic and social mobility for its students, almost half of whom are first generation college students.
Featured image credit: DepositPhotos.com
