It is important to note this table will be updated as WeAreHBCUs can confirm and verify the largest donation and gift sums. These numbers do not include money given by federal or state grants and other similar partnerships, only private donors, alumni, and corporations. The only exceptions are the $30 million debt cancellation to Cheyney University and $1 million granted to Alabama State University by state judge’s ruling.
All data is original work that has been sourced and compiled by WeAreHBCUs. Read the footnotes under the table for what asterisks(*) next to each HBCU mean and what data was used for enrollment.
Largest Gift/Donation by HBCU Working Database
- HBCUs denoted with a single asterisk(*) indicate that I was not able to confirm their single largest gift or donation and used the highest total I could find through research. I will be reaching out to the University directly to try to get a confirmed number.
- HBCUs denoted with two asterisks(**) are not recognized by the Department of Education as an HBCU but for this database are recognized as such.
- HBCUs denoted with three asterisks(***) do not have a largest gift as they are apart of the Southern University System so I used the highest total to represent all three schools.
- HBCUs denoted with four asterisks(****) indicate that their largest gift was debt clearance or a building.
- HBCUs denoted with five asterisks(*****) indicate that I could not find a single highest donation and used the school foundation statements as a placeholder for the highest donation.
- HBCUs denoted with six asterisks (******) indicate special circumstances. Saint Philip's College largest gift was split across 6 schools in its district. Knoxville College only has 11 students after reopening and thus are the only school with no gift or donation recorded that is open.
- Gift is used to denote any gift/grant given by a private donor, alumni, or corporation. Bequest is used to denote any gifts that are an estate or will. Any other Gift Types are self-explanatory.
- To ensure continuity across the board, Fall 2018 Enrollment numbers were used from the National Center for Education Statistics https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_313.10.asp