Even state-operated colleges now depend on private gifts. Indeed, public institutions like the University of Virginia and University of California, Berkeley now receive more money in a given year from individual donors than they do from the states that run them. And 2017 saw the arrival of the largest private contribution ever made to public higher-ed in the state of California. Bill Frost, who earned a degree in biochemistry from Cal Polytechnic, San Luis Obispo then founded the company Chemlogics, offered $110 million to his alma mater to strengthen its hands-on teaching of math and science. Cal Poly is a 21,000-student campus known for its “learn by doing” instructional method.
- Los Angeles Times reporting, latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-cal-poly-slo-donation-20170502-story.html