The University of Oregon has received a $1 billion pledge from Phil and Penny Knight — the largest single gift in the school's history — to found an engineering school in Eugene. The funds will support faculty recruitment, new facilities, and long-term program development to strengthen engineering education and research. Phil Knight, a 1959 Oregon alumnus and Nike co-founder, and his wife have given more than $5 billion to higher education and medical institutions.
Phil and Penny Knight Pledge $1 Billion to Build an Engineering School at the University of Oregon — A Landmark Gift
The University of Ortegon receives its largest gift ever — $1 billion from Phil Knight and his wife Penny.getty
Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, have pledged $1 billion to the University of Oregon to establish a new engineering school in Eugene. The donation — the largest single gift in the university’s history — will fund faculty recruitment, new facilities, and long-term program development designed to position Oregon as a competitive center for engineering education and research.
Details and Impact
The commitment was first reported by The New York Times and local Oregon media. University leaders say the funding will support hiring top faculty, building modern laboratories and classrooms, and expanding partnerships with regional industry to spur innovation and workforce development.
"Phil and Penny Knight have a long history of believing in things before they exist," University of Oregon President Karl Scholz said in the university news release. "They did it in 2016, and they are doing it again now, at a scale that is genuinely hard to take in. I am grateful to them, and I am grateful to be here for it."
Phil Knight added: "To make an audacious dream a reality requires more than a vivid imagination. It also requires the sort of opportunity that our great American universities, both public and private, have historically provided. This is no time to abandon them. Penny and I are grateful for the chance to invest in our most promising young people's future in this important way."
Background
Phil Knight graduated from the University of Oregon in 1959 with a business degree, earning three letters as a middle-distance runner under coach Bill Bowerman. After a year in the Army he earned an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1962. While at Stanford, Knight wrote a class paper titled "Can Japanese sports shoes do to German sports shoes what Japanese cameras did to German cameras?" — an idea that helped spark the founding of Nike with Bowerman. Nike later grew into a global leader in athletic footwear, apparel and equipment.
Philanthropic Record
Phil and Penny Knight are among America's most prominent philanthropists, having donated more than $5 billion to higher-education and medical institutions. In 2025 they committed $2 billion to the Oregon Health & Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute — a gift that surpassed Michael Bloomberg’s $1.8 billion donation to Johns Hopkins as the largest higher-education gift in U.S. history. Earlier gifts to the University of Oregon include two $500 million commitments (announced in 2016 and 2021) that created the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact, focused on bioengineering and applied research. The couple also gave $400 million to create the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program at Stanford.
Campus Legacy
Several University of Oregon facilities already bear the Knight name, including the library and the basketball arena, which is named for the Knights' son Matthew, who died in a scuba diving accident in 2004. University officials say the new $1 billion gift will expand educational and research opportunities for students and faculty while strengthening ties between the university and industry across Oregon.
Sources: University of Oregon news release; The New York Times; local Oregon media; Forbes (original reporting).
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