In 1638, John Harvard, an English-born Puritan minister and teacher in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, bequeathed 400 books and half his £779 estate, today equivalent to roughly US$2 million, to the college that would be renamed in his honor after his death.
In addition to launching America’s oldest university, Harvard’s donation began a tradition of philanthropy for U.S. colleges and universities that has continued ever since. Today, philanthropy is an important source of higher education funding that covers an average of 10% of college and university budgets.
