Phil Knight’s $1bn gift to University of Oregon

Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny have made a staggering $1 billion donation to the University of Oregon. Described as the "largest gift ever made to a comprehensive public university," this donation is intended to establish a new engineering school in Eugene. The university sees the new school as a way to educate engineers and applied scientists in bioengineering and high-demand disciplines, attract faculty and researchers, and speed up the translation of discoveries into products, therapies, technologies and companies.

This donation bolsters the Knights' already impressive philanthropic record. Earlier this year, they committed $1.1 billion to Providence St. Vincent Medical Center and Providence Heart Institute in Portland, and in 2025 they gave $2 billion to OHSU's Knight Cancer Institute. Phil Knight, the 88-year-old co-founder of Nike, has a net worth of approximately $23 billion, according to Bloomberg.

University of Oregon President Karl Scholz expressed gratitude for the Knights' generosity, stating that their donation "endorses what higher education delivers" and "gives us the ability to scale innovation, accelerate impact, and meet the demand for skilled engineering required by the industries of tomorrow, all without placing that financial burden on state taxpayers."

The generous donation is the third commitment the Knights have made at this scale in the past decade, following $500 million in 2016 and $500 million in 2021 that created and expanded the Knight Campus. Phil Knight, a proud alumnus of the University of Oregon, believes that such investments in education and innovation are crucial in an uncertain era for federal funding and research.