Carnegie Mellon University announced on Friday that it had received a generous donation of USD57 million from hedge fund billionaire David Tepper. Tepper's gifts to the educational institution had totaled to over USD125 million.
Tepper founded the Appaloosa Management hedge fund in 1993 after a stint with Jack Walton. The firm specializes in distressed debt and invests in fixed income markets and public equity markets globally. Currently, Appaloosa manages USD20 billion in assets, securing the title of being on of the largest hedge funds in the world.
The donation of Tepper to Carnegie Mellon would result to a planned academic hub in its Pittsburgh campus that would be named under the mutual fund billionaire's name. Tepper said that the gift will hopefully improve his alma mater's reputation and ranking in the education sector. Tepper was a graduate of Carnegi Mellon's business school.
"Carnegie Mellon tied everything together for me and gave me a great foundation. My earlier gifts were a payback to the university, and this is a continuation of that."
The gift received by Carnegie Mellon was in the middle of the many massive donations given to universities in the past year. New York Mayor Michael R Bloomberg announced his USD350 million commitment to Johns Hopkins University. Yale University recently received USD250 million from mutual fund billionaire Charles B Johnson. Real estate developer Stephen Ross introduced his USD200 million gift to the University of Michigan. Another real estate developer, Frank McCourt Jr, also gave USD100 million to Georgetown University.
Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy associate dean for academic affairs and research Patrick Rooney said about the gift-giving trend, "The tremendous wealth creation in this country has inured to the benefit of higher education. Inherent in these major gifts is a deep pride and sense of ownership that these donors take in their alma maters."
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