A Tiny, 800-Student Kansas College Just Received an Anonymous $1 Billion Donation

Tori Latham
·2 min read
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Donors regularly give millions of dollars to some of the country’s most well-known universities. But a small college you probably haven’t heard of just got a massive, $1 billion gift.

McPherson College in Kansas was given that eye-popping sum by an anonymous donor, Bloomberg reported on Friday. That $1 billion will lift the school’s endowment to more than $1.5 billion, an impressive total for a school with just over 800 students. (For reference, Harvard has the largest endowment of any school in the U.S., with more than $50 billion. Liberal-arts schools like Amherst and Williams sit around $3.5 billion.)

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“This reflects on the great work that our faculty, staff and students do at McPherson College,” Michael Schneider, the school’s president, told Bloomberg.

The $1 billion donation is part of a fundraising drive that the college launched last year. An anonymous donor said they’d give up to $500 million, gifting $2 for every $1 donated by June 30. But McPherson ended up bringing in $342 million, and the donor decided to increase their contribution into the 10 figures.

Despite its small size, McPherson is lauded as the only school in the United States that offers a bachelor’s degree in automotive restoration. The college has on its campus some impressive vehicles, including a 1914 Ford Model T Speedster, a 1956 Austin Healy 100 M Le Mans, and a 1972 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona. Students themselves have worked on projects like rewiring a 1932 Paul Harris Roadster and restoring a 1971 Corvette to standards accepted by the National Corvette Restorers Society.

Thanks to its focus on classic cars, the school has gained some notable celebrity fans. Jay Leno, for example, has endowed two scholarships at the college. “Much like art historians who clean and repair the works of the Renaissance era, the young men and women at McPherson College are doing it with automobiles, recreating abilities and techniques long forgotten, and they’ll make a good living doing it,” Leno said in a statement earlier this year. “Our hobby and heritage are safe in their hands.”

Now those hands have a little extra dough to work with, too.

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