Nike co-founder Phil Knight announced Wednesday the donation of $400 million to Stanford University, which will be used for graduate school scholarships under the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program. The program is named after Knight, an alumnus of Stanford, and outgoing Stanford President John L. Hennessy.
The program will admit 100 graduate students annually in different fields such as service, civic commitment and leadership. The program will accept scholars on 2018, and it will cover their three-year living expenses as well as their tuition for their graduate education, according to Fortune.
"We wanted to create something enduring, that would be unlike anything else currently available to the world's brightest minds, and that would make the biggest impact possible toward solving global challenges affecting the environment, health, education and human rights," Hennessy said, according to the Stanford University Knight-Hennessy Scholars.
"We will bring together outstanding, courageous scholars to benefit from Stanford's innovative educational environment, who then go on to lead governments, businesses, nonprofits and other complex organizations and develop creative solutions to effect positive change," he added.
An updated tally on Phil Knight's biggest philanthropic gifts: pic.twitter.com/ZIxgW1LU0c
— Matthew Kish (@matthewkish) February 24, 2016
Knight's donation to the university, which was announced on his 78th birthday, is one of the largest amounts ever donated to an educational institution by a single person. The biggest donation ever made was for the University of Oregon in 2013 and amounted to $500 million for cancer research, and it was also given by Knight, according to CNN Money.
Knight earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Oregon in 1959 and his MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1962.
