Historic $3B Gift Will Fuel Carnegie Mellon Expansion

Carnegie Mellon University has received a historic $3 billion donation from Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin, the largest individual gift ever given to a higher ed institution.

Two-thirds of the funds will be used to launch a new campus, CMU Miami, which will focus on advancing research and discovery to solve society’s greatest challenges in areas such as human health, national security and climate resilience. The campus will also support innovation in teaching and hands-on learning.

Construction on the Miami campus is expected to begin in 2027, with the first students enrolling in 2028; eventually CMU Miami will house more than 3,500 undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. students, nearly 300 faculty, and over 600 staff members.

“Since its founding, Carnegie Mellon has fostered remarkable talent, pioneered scientific breakthroughs, and expanded the frontiers of research—shaping global leaders and innovators,” Griffin said in a statement. “The opportunity to bring Carnegie Mellon to Miami places our city at the heart of humanistic and scientific advancement and amplifies the University’s international reach and impact. It is a tremendous privilege to be part of this historic moment.”

The remaining $1 billion of his gift will go toward CMU’s Pittsburgh campus, where it will be split evenly between funding the university’s rotating slate of top priorities and supporting the computer science school, which will now be known as the Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science. 

“We are deeply grateful to Ken Griffin for his extraordinary vision, partnership and belief in what Carnegie Mellon can achieve,” said CMU President Farnam Jahanian. “Throughout our history, CMU has anticipated moments of profound technological change and responded with new ways of thinking and solving problems … Together, we have an opportunity to extend the very qualities that have long distinguished Carnegie Mellon—our agility, creativity, interdisciplinary culture and relentless focus on impact—to build a new model for higher education that meets the urgency of this moment.”