In what its beneficiaries are touting as the “largest individual gift in higher education history,” Citadel hedge fund founder and CEO Ken Griffin has contributed $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University for a project that includes establishing a campus in Miami, the university announced.
“I’ve been a resident of Miami for almost five years now,” Griffin told NBC News. “To bring one of the greatest universities in the world to Miami will be game-changing for this city.”
Miami has served as the global headquarters of Griffin’s Citadel since 2022. The move has been described as a “catalytic event” in the establishment of “Wall Street South,” that is, the establishment of Miami as a “legitimate second financial capital after New York.”
According to Carnegie Mellon University, $1 billion from Griffin’s gift will be used for the university’s Pittsburgh campus. Of that amount, $500 million will be invested in the School of Computer Science, which will be renamed the Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science. The rest will go toward the Pittsburgh campus’s priorities, the university stated.
The other $2 billion will launch “CMU Miami” – a name that sounds similar to the popular 2000s TV show “CSI: Miami.” The 35-acre campus will be located in Miami’s Wynwood Neighborhood. It will serve as a “model for higher education built for the next era of American innovation” and “organized around societal challenges, designed to prepare future leaders for a rapidly changing world,” the university said in a statement.
The Miami campus is expected to begin enrolling students in 2028, the university stated.
In making the gift, Griffin joins a growing list of billionaires who have made high-profile contributions to institutions of higher education in recent years.
Forbes notes that the gift surpasses the $2 billion gift that Phil and Penny Knight gave to the Oregon Health & Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute in 2025.
Beyond the sheer amount, questions are being raised about the motivations behind the gift.
“Some professors and students said they hope Griffin’s gift will improve student life on campus and cement CMU’s position as an innovative institution,” Pittsburgh’s Public Source observes. “Others on campus cited Griffin’s bankrolling of Republican candidates and pro-Israel viewpoints as reasons to question whether strings are attached to the record-breaking gift.”
Jamaal Abdul-Alim is a longtime education writer who resides in Washington, D.C. He occasionally teaches journalism and has completed fellowships at the University of Michigan, Columbia University and New America.
