Nike co-founder Phil Knight
Phil Knight and his wife Penny have donated a whopping $1 billion to the University of Oregon, according to a New York Times report. Last week, they committed $1.1 billion to Providence St. In 2025, they gave $2 billion to OHSU’s Knight Cancer Institute. Knight, 88, has a net worth of nearly $23 billion, according to Bloomberg. Additionally, the White House’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal called for a nearly 36% cut in non-defense science research and development funding. It also proposed cuts of nearly 57% at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and more than 40% at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Nike cofounder Phil Knight just made the largest known donation to a public flagship university in the US. The donation, surfaced from an unscheduled call, will go toward establishing an engineering college in the University. The latest pledge adds to previous donations by the Knights. Vincent Medical Center and Providence Heart Institute in Portland. However, Congress largely rejected those proposed cuts and kept science funding mostly unchanged.