Carnegie Mellon University just announced the gift of $3 billion from hedge fund capitalist Ken Griffin. The school said bluntly, “This investment in CMU is the largest-ever gift by an individual in the history of higher education.”
A billion will go to CMU’s main campus in Pittsburgh, where Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon made their fortunes and built their higher education institutions, which merged in the 1960s. The other $2 billion will go to the city in the background of the above photo of Mister Griffin.
It’s not Chicago.
Chicago is where he made his fortune. Instead the money will go to build a campus in Miami, where he fled to escape the violent crime and corrupt politics of Chicago in 2022.
The gift fulfills the prophesy of David Axelrod, whose reaction four years ago to Griffin’s departure was “Whatever your politics, you should consider this a loss to the city and state, not just because of the taxes lost, but because of Griffin’s philanthropy has been expansive and impactful.”
He knows his history. John D. Rockefeller founded the University of Chicago in 1890.
A century later, Griffin founded Citadel in Chicago in 1990. He and his investors flourished. He became one of Illinois’s richest and most visible philanthropists.
His donated to major Chicago institutions, including large gifts to the University of Chicago (economics department), the Museum of Science and Industry (now the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry), the Field Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and others. Total giving in the Chicago area ran into the hundreds of millions.
He also gave money to his alma mater, Harvard, but has shifted to helping CMU. To put this week’s $3 billion gift in perspective, CMU’s endowment is a little more than $4 billion.
In remarks to the city’s Economic Club in 2021, Griffin said, “It’s becoming ever more difficult to have this as our global headquarters, a city which has so much violence. I mean Chicago is like Afghanistan on a good day. And that’s a problem.”
And he said, “There is nowhere where you can feel safe today walking home at 9:30 at night, and you worry about your kids going to and from school. I can’t look people in the eye like I did 20 years ago and say, ‘This is a great place to raise a family.’ I can’t give that same speech today.”
After he left for Miami and took his company with him, he said, “I’ve lived in a failed city-state. I lived in Chicago for 30-some years. I had two colleagues who had bullets fly through their cars. I had 25 bullet holes in the front of my building where I lived. You can’t live in a city awash with violent crime.
“Dinner in Chicago would be about crime, about cronyism, about failed policies in the state. It is so refreshing to be in a city where people talk about tomorrow.”
Taxes are better in Florida. Illinois has a flat state income tax of 4.95%. Florida has none. Corporate income taxes are 7% in Illinois and 5% in Florida.
The weather also is better in Miami, where it is pretty much summer year-round. As the global warmists say, snow is a thing of the past.
Local 10 in Miami said, “CMU said its Miami campus will be designed differently from a traditional university, organizing education and research around major societal challenges rather than academic majors.
“At launch, the university plans to focus on areas including human health and biological discovery, national security and strategic capabilities, energy and climate resilience, and advanced manufacturing and industrial transformation.
“Interdisciplinary teams of students, researchers, industry leaders and government partners will work together on those challenges, according to the university. Humanities, arts and design will also be incorporated into the campus’ approach.
“CMU said the Miami location will be developed as a comprehensive university campus where both education and research are central to its mission, rather than simply extending individual programs or research projects from its Pittsburgh campus.”
In announcing the gift, which in reality is building a new private college, CMU listed the checks Griffin has written in recent years:
- $400 million to Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital, with David Geffen, to advance cancer research and care.
- $500 million to Harvard University, which includes the largest individual gift solely for financial aid, along with a transformational gift to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to expand opportunity and advance research excellence.
- $220 million to the University of Chicago to support the extraordinary work of the Economics Department and pioneering applied research across education, economic mobility, and violence reduction.
- $20 million to Miami Dade College, the largest single gift in the institution’s history, to establish a scholarship fund to provide financial assistance for more than 8,000 students from low-income households, half of whom are the first in their families to attend college, at the largest and most diverse public college in America.
- $85 million to Success Academy, one of the nation’s highest performing public charter school networks, to fund its expansion into Miami with new schools, building on significant prior support for the network’s proven model in New York City.
- $25 million to expand and evaluate personalized learning initiatives in public schools in Miami and around the country, to support and accelerate student math learning.
Since moving Citadel to South Florida, Griffin has given:
- $50 million to Baptist Health South Florida, the largest gift in the institution’s history, for research and treatments for neurodegenerative disorders.
- $50 million to the University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, to support groundbreaking cancer research and compassionate care.
- $25 million to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital to support a new, state-of-the-art surgical tower and advance pediatric patient treatments and care.
Politics is why Chicago has this:
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But will not have this:
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Way to go, Chicago.
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This article first appeared on Don Surber’s Substack. Reprinted here with permission.
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