Knight commits $1 billion to Oregon

Phil Knight and his wife Penny announced a one billion dollar gift to the University of Oregon, where Knight graduated in nineteen fifty-nine, to establish an engineering college.

Total gifts now exceed $2 billion

The new gift brings the Knights' total commitment to the Knight Campus to more than two billion dollars, including five hundred million dollar gifts in two thousand sixteen and two thousand twenty-one.

Engineering program will take a decade

The University of Oregon currently offers only engineering minors and graduate programs. The new gift will fund a full undergraduate engineering program, a process officials said will take about a decade.

Federal support for universities is in doubt

The Trump administration laid off thousands at federal science agencies, slowed grant payments to colleges, and proposed cutting nearly thirty-six percent of non-defense science research funding in fiscal twenty twenty-six.

Knight: this is no time to abandon universities

Phil Knight said in a statement that making audacious dreams real requires opportunity that American universities have historically provided. He added: this is no time to abandon them.

“This is no time to abandon them.”

Knight steps in as federal support retreats

As the Trump administration cuts funding to research agencies and universities, billionaire philanthropists including Phil Knight and MacKenzie Scott are making major donations to higher education institutions.