A Donation to Harvard

“Harvard Gazette” reports Jeremy Lin has made a $1 million donation to Harvard (photo credit: Chensiyuan).

Harvard University has the biggest endowment in the world. At the end of fiscal year 2015, Harvard’s endowment was reported to be$37,615,545,000. And yes, that’s a whole lot of commas. That’s over $37 billion. So when someone makes a donation to Harvard of $1,000,000, it’s not exactly newsworthy. But regular readers of our college admissions blog know that we are big fans of Jeremy Lin, the former Harvard basketball player turned NBA player. Jeremy is now the face of the Brooklyn Nets. And, today, it was announced that Jeremy made a $1 million donation to his alma mater.

As reported by “Harvard Gazette,” “‘Without question, my time at Harvard prepared me well for success both on and off the court,’ said Lin. ‘I’m honored to put that same world-class education in reach for deserving students and to support improvements to the facilities where I spent countless hours practicing and competing.'” The $1 million donation will be earmarked for financial aid as well as renovations to the university’s basketball arena.

The piece continues, “William R. Fitzsimmons ’67, Harvard College dean of admissions and financial aid, said, ‘I find it inspiring to see the commitment to financial aid and Athletics that Harvard College and Jeremy share. His generosity will strengthen the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative (HFAI), through which more than half of our undergraduates receive need-based grant aid.'”

It’s nice to see one of Harvard’s favorite sons making a sizable donation to his alma mater. And we’re excited for Linsanity to return to New York, even though Jeremy probably wants to keep Linsanity behind him. The fact is he’s been a very good NBA player throughout his career even if those couple of crazy weeks when he wore a New York Knicks uniform never happened.