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MacKenzie Scott gives $5 million to Southwest Texas Junior CollegeFree Access


Southwest Texas Junior College has received an unrestricted $5 million gift, which will support the college’s mission to enrich lives and advance growth throughout the diverse communities it serves.

This is a transformational gift and the biggest in our history,” said SWTJC President Hector Gonzales. “It will provide us the means to expand our work in serving the students and communities of Southwest Texas.”

The gift, which is the largest in SWTJC history, is a portion of $2,739,000,000 gifted to 286 “high impact organizations” by author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, who describes herself as a mother, writer, and advocate.

Scott’s contribution recognizes SWTJC’s transformative work in student success and its long-standing history of educating students who come from chronically underserved communities.

In 2020, Scott donated $6 billion to organizations involved with COVID-19 relief, gender equity, and historically Black colleges and universities.

In a blog post on Tuesday regarding her current round of donations, Scott wrote, “Higher education is a proven pathway to opportunity, so we looked for two- and four-year institutions successfully educating students who come from communities that have been chronically underserved… We chose to make relatively large gifts to the organizations named below, both to enable their work, and as a signal of trust and encouragement, to them and to others.”

Her announcement on June 15 marks the third round of significant philanthropic gifts she has made in recent months. Since July 2020, her donations have totaled $8.5 billion.

Scott’s official announcement can be viewed on her blog at mackenzie-scott.medium.com/seeding-by-ceding-ea6de642bf/.

The preceding information was provided by Ismael Martinez in the public information office at Southwest Texas Junior College.