Andrew Carnegie, the American steel magnate, donated $1 million to the city of Pittsburgh in 1900. His aim was to establish a school that would teach practical skills to workers. Carnegie himself had attended night school and borrowed books to read, rising from a textile mill worker to the titan who built the world's largest steel company by the late 19th century. The Carnegie Technical Schools, founded with his money, merged with the Mellon Institute in 1967 to become Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Now, 126 years later, it ranks among the world's leading research universities in computer science, artificial intelligence and robotics.
Ken Griffin, founder and chief executive of the hedge fund Citadel, announced on the 30th of last month that he would donate $3 billion (about 4 trillion won) to CMU. It is the largest single gift from an individual to an American university on record. The young man who put a satellite dish on his Harvard dormitory roof to receive real-time market quotes went on to become the king of hedge funds. Calling education "an on-ramp to the American dream," he has given generously in support of it. He has funded scholarships for low-income students at Harvard and paid for economics research and teaching at the University of Chicago.
Korean universities have their own tradition of large gifts from business leaders. Kim Jae-chul, honorary chairman of Dongwon Group, gave a total of 60.3 billion won to the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and Lee Soo-young, chairwoman of Kwangwon Industry, contributed 76.6 billion won. Chang Byung-gyu, chairman of Krafton (259960.KS), added 10 billion won. Such gifts become the seed capital that draws outstanding students and faculty and underwrites research. It is a virtuous cycle in which wealth built by entrepreneurs nurtures talent and technology, which in turn drives industrial growth.
As competition intensifies in advanced industries such as AI and semiconductors, the nation's future rests on how universities train talent and conduct research. Yet many universities are struggling just to balance their books, squeezed by a shrinking school-age population and a long freeze on tuition. Donations cannot solve the structural problems in university finances. Still, they can prime the pump, helping to cultivate future talent and give research room to breathe. Just as Carnegie's $1 million became the seed of a world-class science and technology university a century later, one hopes that giving to nurture people and technology will grow far more active in Korea as well.
