Citadel CEO Ken Griffin has committed $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University, the largest individual donation in higher education history.
The gift, announced on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, will fund a new campus in Miami and expand programs at the university's flagship campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
According to university statements, $2 billion is directed to establishing the Miami campus, while $1 billion supports the Pittsburgh campus.
The previous record for individual higher education philanthropy was $2 billion, given by Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny to Oregon Health & Science University in August 2025.
That gift had surpassed Michael Bloomberg's $1.8 billion donation to Johns Hopkins University in 2018.
As part of the donation, Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science will be renamed the Kenneth C.
Griffin School of Computer Science, and Griffin will join the university's board of trustees.
"The opportunity to bring Carnegie Mellon to Miami places our city at the heart of humanistic and scientific advancement and amplifies the University's international reach and impact," said Griffin.
Griffin, whose net worth is estimated at $57.5 billion by Bloomberg, relocated Citadel's headquarters from Chicago to Miami in 2022, citing concerns over crime and praising Florida's business environment.
"CMU Miami will cultivate the talent, knowledge, and expertise to launch new enterprises, contribute to Miami's economy and community, and advance the prosperity of our nation," said Griffin.
The billionaire's previous major gifts include $300 million to Harvard University in 2023, $125 million to the University of Chicago in 2017, and $50 million donations to the University of Miami's cancer center, Baptist Health Foundation's neuroscience institute, and Success Academy.
"It's a state that is prospering," said Griffin at a 2022 CNBC conference.
Griffin recently indicated plans to expand Citadel's presence in Miami over New York following a public dispute with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani regarding proposed taxes on luxury high-rises.
"It's really fun to be in an environment where people are embracing the future. They're hopeful about the future," said Griffin.
In 2024, Griffin voiced criticism regarding top university leadership and paused donations to Harvard University over its handling of campus antisemitism.
"Are we going to educate the future members of the House and the Senate and the leaders of IBM?
Or are we going to educate a group of young men and women who are just caught up in a rhetoric of oppressor and oppressee and this is not fair and frankly just like whiny snowflakes?"
said Griffin.
Addressing the broader shifts in the educational landscape alongside the rise of artificial intelligence, university leadership emphasized the need for institutional evolution.
"Artificial intelligence represents one of the defining intellectual developments of our time, and it demands that we rethink how we educate students, conduct research and partner with others," said Farnam Jahanian, President of Carnegie Mellon University.
The planned 35-acre Miami campus will be located in the Wynwood neighborhood, with construction scheduled to begin in 2027 and student enrollment targeted for 2028, eventually serving over 3,500 students across undergraduate, master's, and PhD programs.
Rather than traditional academic majors, the Miami campus will organize its programs around societal challenges, focusing on health, national security, climate resilience, energy, and advanced manufacturing.
