Last year, billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott embarked on a giving spree, giving $740 million to 16 Historically Black Colleges and Universities. It’s a meaningful boost for institutions that have long operated with far too little, but it shouldn’t be mistaken for a broader shift in philanthropic habits.
Gifts of this scale to under-resourced colleges remain rare, while elite universities continue to draw far larger sums year after year. At this point, Harvard and Yale don’t need your money. Yet they continue to attract it.
The eight Ivy League universities collectively hold more than $200 billion in endowment wealth. That single number eclipses the resources of entire sectors that educate exponentially more students. All 100-plus HBCUs together manage just $4 billion to $5 billion.
America’s roughly 1,000 community colleges hold only about $655 million in endowment assets. Some 400 regional public universities share between $30 billion and $50 billion. The combined amount still pales in comparison to Ivy League largesse. And yet, at a time when Americans are demanding more value, the strongest returns come precisely from those institutions.
Scott appears to understand what many donors have yet to fully appreciate: the smartest place to put your money isn’t always the universities with billion-dollar endowments, gleaming campuses, and armies of fundraisers, but the colleges that have been scraping by for generations, quietly doing more with less.
Indeed, HBCUs have long advanced economic mobility for communities too often left out of the mainstream. Community colleges and regional universities open doors to millions each year, offering affordable pathways to careers and degrees that change family trajectories for generations. And they do it all on comparatively lean budgets.
Imagine what these institutions could do if more donors stopped reflexively writing checks to their alma mater and instead invested in institutions making the greatest difference per dollar. HBCUs and other under-resourced colleges offer the greatest philanthropic bang for your buck in higher education. A $1 million gift to Princeton barely shifts the interest earned on its $34 billion endowment.
The same $1 million could double the scholarship pool at an HBCU, transform a community college’s workforce training program, or modernize outdated labs that prepare students for STEM careers.
The United States is now on the brink of the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in its history. Over the coming two decades, baby boomers and older generations are projected to transfer around $84 trillion to younger heirs and charitable causes by 2045. While most of that money will go to families, trillions will still flow to organizations and institutions.
When wealth changes hands, colleges are among the most common destinations for philanthropic dollars. Yet the overwhelming majority of donors simply default to their alma mater or institutions with strong brand recognition. Donations to the wealthiest colleges barely register. It’s like tossing a snowflake into an avalanche.
By contrast, HBCUs, community colleges, and similarly under-resourced institutions operate on vastly leaner budgets yet deliver outsized returns. HBCUs make up just 3 percent of the nation’s colleges and universities, but they produce a disproportionate share of Black graduates and nearly one-quarter of Black STEM degrees. Their alumni are more likely to become leaders in their communities, closing racial wealth gaps and fostering mobility across generations.
Community colleges educate more than 10 million learners, including large numbers of first-generation, working, and older students. Together, these institutions are engines of opportunity running on remarkably little fuel. Despite their track record, they seldom see large-scale philanthropic investment.
Dynamics are starting to change. In fall 2025, Scott announced a transformative gift of $70 million to UNCF, the nation’s largest private scholarship provider to minority students, where I serve as senior vice president of the Institute for Capacity Building. This investment will not only expand educational opportunities for generations of students but also bolster a pooled endowment fund for all 37 of our member institutions. Meanwhile, Huston-Tillotson University, an Austin, Texas-based HBCU, recently landed $150 million from the Moody Foundation. That’s the single largest gift ever to an HBCU.
Ironically, many donors facing this once-in-a-generation wealth transfer have spent decades making shrewd investment decisions to build their fortunes, only to dispatch their final philanthropic gifts with comparatively little scrutiny. Donors who want to be remembered should approach their legacy with the same thoughtfulness as they approach their portfolio.
If the goal of giving is to expand opportunity, the greatest marginal return comes from investing where dollars are scarce. At these institutions, each additional gift can transform student outcomes and community well-being in ways another grant to a highly resourced elite school simply cannot.
The return on investment in human potential is far higher where each dollar can make a splash, rather than adding to an already deep reservoir. Legacy gifts are best directed to where they make the greatest impact. The evidence is clear: smart philanthropy means investing in return — not reputation, and not nostalgia.
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