Bloomberg Foundation Pledges $375 Million to Help Needy Kids Attend College and Get Career Training

Michael Bloomberg, one of the country’s most prolific donors to elite universities, announced that his foundation is putting $375 million toward higher-education efforts that will, in part, help low- and moderate-income students get into those colleges.

“If we want to stop intergenerational poverty, we have to start by helping more of those deserving kids go to good colleges,” Bloomberg said at an education forum sponsored by the New York Times, according to prepared remarks. “The better the college, the better the education students receive. And the better the education, the better the opportunities they will have.”

Bloomberg Philanthropies, the media magnate’s foundation, will fund and implement the five-year plan.

It also aims to improve career training for high schoolers who drop out or who don’t go to a four-year college. The donation aims to help both groups “learn skills that they can put to use in the work force, in jobs that won’t be automated out of existence, like plumbing, automotive mechanics, and construction,” Bloomberg said.

He has given at least $1.5 billion to Johns Hopkins, his alma mater and one of the most selective universities in the country. Other gifts to Cornell, Harvard, and Princeton, have helped make him one of the biggest givers to individual institutions of higher education, according to a Chronicle analysis.

Yale on Board

At least some of the investment will go to Bloomberg Philanthropies’ American Talent Initiative, which aims to enroll 50,000 low- and moderate-income students at colleges and universities with strong graduation rates by 2025. Yale, Wake Forest, and the University of Washington are among some 100 institutions that have joined the coalition. Each has made public commitments on such fronts as boosting graduation rates and increasing enrollment by first-generation students and Pell Grant recipients.

In the speech, Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, also suggested that career-training partnerships between schools and businesses might get support. As models, he pointed to CareerWise Colorado and YouthForce in New Orleans, among others.

“Employers provide education and skill development in a wide variety of fields — and in exchange, they get access to a pipeline of future workers.”