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Howard University announces $80 million gift from MacKenzie Scott​

November 3, 2025

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Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has wired a multimillion-dollar gift to another historically black campus: Howard University.
The D.C. university said it received $80 million in unrestricted funds, giving officials wide latitude over how to spend the money.

Wayne A.I. Frederick, Howard’s interim president, said he plans to use the donation — one of the largest single contributions in the school’s 158-year history — to train more medical professionals, upgrade facilities for the growing university and to stave off the effects of the government’s more than month-long shutdown.


Howard, chartered by an act of Congress, is among a handful of universities that receive an annual federal appropriation. But the roughly $55 million allotment, normally issued in October, is being held up because of the shutdown.

“Some 80 to 90 percent of the funds that come into the university have a federal source, whether you’re looking at Pell grants, the hospital — patients with Medicare and Medicaid,” Frederick said in an interview.

The university will launch a “temporary relief plan” to allow students with past-due balances to defer payments until the spring semester without incurring late fees or penalties — an effort to help students and families facing furloughs, layoffs and delays in federal funding, officials said.
At least three other HBCUs in the D.C. region have also announced gifts from Scott in recent weeks, including $63 million to Morgan State University, $50 million to Virginia State University and $38 million to the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore.

At Howard, most of Scott’s gift — $63 million — has been issued to the entire university of more than 13,000 students. The remaining $17 million is for Howard’s medical school, which Frederick said has received a record number of applications for enrollment — around 10,000 applicants for 125 seats.
Howard is one of four HBCUs that has a medical school.

Officials plan to expand its academic medical center, increasing the number of nursing, dental, medical and pharmacy students.
“Ms. Scott’s generosity will have a lasting impact on medical education, research and health equity,” Andrea A. Hayes Dixon, the dean and senior vice president of Howard’s medical school, said in a statement.
Scott also donated $40 million to Howard in 2020, when many donors were eager to back causes that supported social justice and racial equality. That initial gift went toward financial aid, scholarships for graduates of the University of the District of Columbia who enrolled in Howard’s graduate programs, and the creation of an endowed chair in the name of author Toni Morrison — a Howard alumna and former professor of Scott’s.


Scott donated more than $800 million to colleges in 2020, including more than a half-billion to HBCUs, according to a tally by The Washington Post at the time. Scott’s ex-husband is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns The Post.
“There was a lot of conversation after George Floyd’s murder about philanthropy, especially giving to social justice issues,” Frederick said.
But that support began to peter out in 2021.
Still, he said, support is strong. And Scott’s gift has provided “a boost of confidence.”
“It also says that what you’re doing, based on our own evaluation, we think is important,” Frederick said. “And we think you’re doing it well enough that we can trust you with that type of gift.”
 
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