Businessman Pledges $400-Million to Columbia U.

By Anne W. Howard

The media magnate John Werner Kluge has promised to provide $400-million to Columbia University when he dies, the largest gift a living donor has pledged to an American college or university, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Mr. Kluge, a 92-year-old self-made billionaire who attended the university on a scholarship, earmarked the money to support financial aid for students, said Lee C. Bollinger, Columbia's president.

A German immigrant who graduated from Columbia in 1937 with a bachelor's degree in economics, Mr. Kluge founded and serves as chairman of Metromedia, which has invested in television stations, the Ice Capades, the Harlem Globetrotters, Playbill magazine, and other entertainment companies. His fortune was estimated at $9-billion last year on Forbes magazine's list of the world's billionaires, making him the 52nd richest person on that list.

Half of the gift will support and expand financial aid for undergraduates at Columbia College, and the remaining $200-million will go to scholarships and fellowships in other schools and institutions at the university. Students who need financial aid will receive more support in the form of grants, rather than loans, said Austin Quigley, dean of Columbia College.

"This extraordinary gift will go a long way toward helping us fulfill Columbia´s commitment to making the education we offer available to everyone, regardless of an individual´s financial circumstances," Mr. Bollinger wrote in an e-mail message sent to students on Wednesday.

The donation comes on the heels of numerous big commitments to colleges, hospitals, museums, and other nonprofit institutions. In February, the businessman T. Denny Sanford commited $400-million to Sioux Valley Hospitals and Health System, in South Dakota (The Chronicle, February 8.)

$4-Billion Campaign

In September, the university announced a $4-billion capital campaign, one of the most ambitious campaigns run by an American nonprofit organization. (Stanford University, in California, is seeking $4.3-billion, and Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., is also aiming to raise $4-billion.) Columbia's campaign has so far raised $2.2-billion, including Mr. Kluge's pledge.

"I want to help ensure that Columbia will always be a place where the best and the brightest young people can come to develop their intellect, make something of their own lives and give something back to our communities, our country and our world," Mr. Kluge said in a statement released by the university. He also encouraged other alumni to donate to the university.

Mr. Kluge had previously given more than $110-million to Columbia, supporting the Kluge Scholars, the Kluge Presidential Scholars, the Kluge Faculty Endowment, and other programs.

He has also made big gifts to several other institutions. In 2000, Mr. Kluge gave $60-million to the Library of Congress, to create the John W. Kluge Center and to award a prize for lifetime achievement in the study of humanity. In 2001 he gave the University of Virginia Foundation his 7,378-acre Albemarle County, Va., estate, that was valued at $45-million.