MacKenzie Scott is bypassing the Ivy League and rewriting the $79 billion higher ed playbook by giving to HBCUs and community colleges

Americans gave an estimated $78.8 billion to colleges and universities in fiscal year 2025, a 4% year-over-year increase that barely kept up with inflation, according to survey findings released Tuesday from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

But that figure doesn’t fully illustrate where the money is actually going or which schools have historically been left out. Between 2015 and 2019, the average Ivy League school received 178 times as much philanthropic funding as the average HBCU, according to a study by Candid. Total Ivy League gifts over that period topped $5.5 billion, while HBCUs collectively took in just $303 million.

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has stepped in to close that gap, especially as government funding for historically Black colleges and universities has been yanked by the Trump administration.

During the past five years, Scott has donated more than $1.2 billion to HBCUs, making her one of the most significant donors in that category. (In all, Scott has donated well over $26 billion to thousands of organizations.) In 2025 alone, she gave more than $700 million to more than a dozen HBCUs and affiliated organizations.

Scott has also expanded her higher ed giving to include community colleges, Hispanic-serving institutions, and tribal colleges, many of which had never received a gift anywhere close to this size.

Scott’s largest donations to HBCUs

Many of the donations Scott has made to higher ed institutions are historic. Howard University, the alma mater of former Vice President Kamala Harris, Thurgood Marshall, and Toni Morrison, received $80 million in November 2025—one of the largest single donations in the school’s history, with $17 million earmarked for Howard’s College of Medicine.

This gift came at an especially critical time for Howard. As of Oct. 1, 2025, new grant awards from the Department of Education have been halted because nearly 95% of non-student aid staff were furloughed, leaving only essential staff to keep working.

That left key programs like the HBCU Capital Financing Program, which offers renovation and construction-loan subsidies, in limbo, even as the Education Department announced in September 2025 a $495 million increase for HBCUs and tribally controlled colleges and universities (TCCUs) for FY 2025. But experts say this action is hard to reconcile with the Trump administration’s desire to dissolve the DOE.

“If [the Trump administration] actually … cared about HBCUs and tribal colleges, then you would not see such a big attack on other sectors of higher education,” Mike Hoa Nguyen, an associate professor of education at UCLA, told The American Prospect in October 2025.

Other major gifts to HBCUs from Scott include a $63 million donation to Morgan State University (the largest gift in its history); Prairie View A&M also received $63 million, and Bowie State, Norfolk State, Virginia State, and Winston-Salem State each landed $50 million. In early April, Elizabeth City State University celebrated a $42 million gift on its Founders Day. That donation pushed Scott’s cumulative HBCU total past the billion-dollar mark.

Scott also gave $70 million to the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) in 2025, aimed at strengthening pooled endowments for private HBCUs. She also gave $70 million to the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which represents public HBCUs.

“MacKenzie Scott is rewriting the book on individual philanthropy, and she’s making a huge difference,” UNCF president and CEO Dr. Michael Lomax said in a PBS NewsHour interview following the UNCF gift.

Why Scott’s gifts come at the right time

The Trump administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal calls for a 14.4% reduction in Title III funding, which is the federal program that helps HBCUs, tribal colleges, and other under-resourced institutions improve their academic programs, management, and financial stability. This brings the budget down to roughly $668 million.

“The budget continues the illegal dismantling of the Department of Education, with no suggestion on how this downsized Department will be able to fulfill its statutory duties,” Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), said in a statement. “[By] eliminating programs that provide direct support services for disadvantaged students that promote college access, President Trump’s budget proposal does nothing to deliver for students.”

The White House also proposed cutting $64 million from Howard University‘s direct federal allocation, just days after the president told HBCU leaders during a NewsNation town hall they had nothing to worry about. The Trump administration responded that the reduction was necessary to “to more sustainably support the Nation’s only federally-chartered Historically Black College and University (HBCU).”

While the Department of Education redirected approximately $495 million in one-time discretionary funds to HBCUs and tribal colleges in September 2025, that money came at the expense of $350 million in grants redirected from Hispanic-serving institutions and other minority-serving institutions—programs the department called “ineffective and discriminatory.” The proposed budget would also slash the maximum Pell Grant by $1,685 and eliminate Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants entirely.

For schools that educate overwhelmingly low-income, first-generation students, the combination of cuts represents what higher ed researcher Terrell Strayhorn told Higher Ed Dive in May 2025 is threatening “the very presence and long-term sustainability of some HBCUs.”

Scott’s gifts don’t completely replace federal funding, but they at least offer some breathing room.

Beyond HBCUs: community colleges and tribal schools

Scott’s higher education reach extends well beyond HBCUs. In recent months, she has directed tens of millions of dollars to schools that rarely, if ever, make headlines in the philanthropy world.

Northern Oklahoma College, the state’s oldest public community college, where roughly 80% of students rely on financial aid, received $17 million—the largest gift in the school’s history. Carl Albert State College in Oklahoma received $23 million. Robeson Community College in rural North Carolina received $24 million, and neighboring Bladen Community College got $12 million.

Scott also made record-setting gifts to tribal institutions, including $22 million to Turtle Mountain College in North Dakota, $9 million to Bay Mills Community College in Michigan, and $5 million to Little Priest Tribal College in Nebraska, whose president said the money would help build an entirely new $60 million campus.

“This investment will not only expand our physical footprint, but also empower us to better serve our students, community, and generations to come,” Little Priest President Manoj Patil said in a statement.

The billionaire philanthropist also directed $50 million each to Lehman College at CUNY and Cal State East Bay, and $38 million to Texas A&M International, Texas A&M University–Kingsville, and UC Merced, all of which are federally designated Hispanic-serving institutions.

Scott’s trust-based approach

Scott’s gifts to HBCUs and other underserved institutions are especially impactful because she practices trust-based philanthropy and makes unrestricted gifts.

That means schools can spend the money however they see fit, whether that means expanding scholarships, hiring faculty, fixing buildings, or growing endowments. That flexibility is rare in philanthropy, where major gifts often come loaded with restrictions, reporting requirements, and donor oversight.

“Her style empowers organizations like ours to determine how best to direct funds quickly and innovatively to address pressing issues,” Noni Ramos, CEO of Housing Trust Silicon Valley, told Fortune in 2024.

Early evidence suggests Scott’s approach is working. A 2021 analysis by Rutgers Graduate School of Education of the 23 HBCUs that received Scott’s initial 2020 donations found that the schools Scott selected already had median new-student enrollment more than 300 students higher than peer HBCUs that didn’t receive funding, and retention rates averaging 15 percentage points higher, suggesting Scott targeted institutions with demonstrated momentum.

“We do this research and deeper diligence not only to identify organizations with high potential for impact, but also to pave the way for unsolicited and unexpected gifts given with full trust and no strings attached,” Scott said, according to the report.

The higher ed philanthropy system was built to benefit schools that already had the most, and Scott is systematically redirecting her resources toward the ones that don’t.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com