Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny have donated $1 billion to the University of Oregon to build a new engineering school, the largest gift in the university's history. The gift, first reported by Forbes, continues a decades-long pattern of the Knights pouring money into their alma mater in Eugene.
According to KPTV, the $1 billion commitment is attributed to Forbes reporting and is described as the biggest single donation the university has ever received. Knight ran track for the Oregon Ducks under legendary coach Bill Bowerman, a relationship that would later prove pivotal well beyond the track. He earned a business degree from Oregon in 1959 before heading to Stanford, where he picked up an MBA in 1962.
A Business School Paper That Became a Sneaker Empire
It was at Stanford that Knight wrote a paper on importing athletic shoes from Japan, an idea that eventually led him and Bowerman to launch Nike, which grew into a global sportswear power. That origin story has long been woven into the university's identity, and it helps explain why the Knights keep returning to Eugene with checkbooks in hand.
University of Oregon officials framed the new gift as consistent with that history. Karl Scholz said Phil and Penny Knight have a long history of believing in things before they exist, and noted that the couple made a similar donation in 2016 and are doing it again at a larger scale, per the same account.
Decades of Giving to Their Alma Mater
The Knights' relationship with the University of Oregon goes back well before this latest gift. Knight family donations have funded the university's library and the on-campus basketball arena named for Matthew Knight, and the couple previously gave two $500 million gifts to establish the Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact at the university. Altogether, Phil and Penny Knight have contributed more than $5 billion to higher education.
The dossier contains conflicting figures for a separate Knight gift to Oregon Health and Science University. The station's report states that Phil Knight and Penny Knight gave a record $2 billion gift to Oregon Health and Science University's Knight Cancer Institute in 2025, while a report from Studylon describes a $500 million pledge from the Knights to the same institution. Separately, KPTV reports the Knight family announced a $1.1 billion donation to Providence on September 16.
Part of a Bigger Trend in Mega-Gifts
Higher Ed Dive has been tracking college donations and commitments of $100 million or more announced throughout 2026, and the Knights' gift lands amid a busy year for nine-figure university philanthropy. The outlet reports the University of Texas at Austin received a $750 million commitment from Michael and Susan Dell for a new research campus and medical center, while Cornell University landed a $371.5 million pledge from alumnus David Duffield, marking the largest donation in that Ivy League school's history.
Other recent examples cited by Higher Ed Dive include a $200 million pledge from the Bursky Family Foundation to Washington University in St. Louis for its public health school, a $200 million gift to the University of Southern California for artificial-intelligence research, and a $175 million donation to Santa Clara University to help open a new medical school — its largest gift ever. According to The Feed at Georgetown, big-dollar donations funding scholarships at elite institutions have become a trend among philanthropists seeking a specific, lasting impact, pointing to examples like Michael Bloomberg's $1.8 billion gift to Johns Hopkins University in 2018 and Ruth L. Gottesman's $1 billion donation to Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
The scale of the commitment places it among the largest university gifts nationally this year, alongside the string of nine- and ten-figure donations reshaping campuses from Texas to Missouri to California.
