MacKenzie Scott gave California public education $461 million—and let the recipients decide how to spend every dollar

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott had her banner giving year in 2025, with an eye-popping total of $7 billion in donations across a variety of organizations.

In all, she’s donated more than $26 billion in just the past few years.

But one of her main efforts has gone toward higher education, whether to public institutions that lost funding during the Trump administration or to historically Black colleges and universities.

One hotspot for her philanthropic donations is California, where she’s contributed a whopping $461 million to public education institutions, according to EdSource .

Those donations have come over the course of just four years, between 2021 and 2025.

In all, she’s donated to 16 different institutions, with an average gift size of about $28.8 million.

California State University, Northridge (CSUN), has received the highest cumulative amount from Scott at $103 million, including a $63 million gift in 2025 and a $40 million gift in 2021.

Many of those campuses have been navigating budget shortfalls.

CSUN itself faced a $16.3 million deficit, making the unrestricted, no-strings nature of Scott’s gifts especially valuable at the time.

And in Scott’s philanthropic fashion, those are unrestricted donations, meaning the universities could use them as they choose without oversight from Scott’s organization, Yield Giving.

“MacKenzie Scott’s increased investment reflects confidence in both our mission and in our demonstrated ability to deliver transformational outcomes for students,” Robert Taylor, chair of the CSUN Foundation Board of Directors, said in a statement at the time of the 2025 gift.

The CSUN gifts also fit a pattern for Scott, who tends to donate to diverse organizations.

Of CSUN’s 36,000 students, about 70% are first-generation college students and 60% come from historically underrepresented groups.

Similarly, Scott made two donations to UC Merced, including a $20 million gift in 2021 and a subsequent $38 million gift in 2025.