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Home Depot Co-Founder Blank Gives $50 Million to Black Colleges
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October 17, 2025
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5:55Now PlayingThe family foundation of Arthur M Blank, the billionaire owner of the Atlanta Falcons and co-founder of Home Depot Inc., is giving $50 million over a decade to four historically Black colleges in Atlanta to help students graduate and prevent them from dropping out because of funding gaps.
The donation will be distributed by Morehouse, Spelman and Morris Brown colleges and Clark Atlanta University. Each institution has high populations of recipients of federal Pell grants for low-income students, Blank’s foundation said in a statement Monday. Rosalind Brewer, Spelman College Interim President & Janet Lorin, Bloomberg Higher Education Finance Reporter join to discuss what this means for the future of higher education.
“Our hope is that by helping more students earn their degrees, launch successful careers and become alumni who give back, we are investing in a cycle of opportunity that benefits young people and their families in Atlanta and communities across the nation for years to come,” Blank said.
The amounts to individual students will vary by their needs — from as little as $500 to as much as $10,000 — with the aim of tackling one of the most intractable issues in higher education: completing college. The foundation’s investment in “gap scholarships” is designed to ensure more students stay enrolled and graduate on time by helping students overcome financial barriers.
Morehouse, Spelman and Clark Atlanta, which enroll a few thousand students each, will separately receive about $16 million, while Morris Brown, a school of about 350 students, will receive less. The funding would be available to students after they have exhausted other financial options including federal and state funding and loan programs, and will largely go to students in their junior and senior years.
Starting in 2026, the program is projected to help nearly 10,000 students, helping raise graduation rates across the schools and serve as a model for other philanthropies to expand investment in historically Black college student success.
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