Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Brown University received a $30-million gift for undergraduate financial aid Friday, at the university's corporation meeting.

The gift, from the Steven A. and Alexandra M. Cohen Foundation, brings the total for undergraduate financial aid raised by the Ivy League's capital campaign to $285 million.

When Brown launched its $1.4-billion Campaign for Academic Enrichment in 2005, the university planned to raise $300 million to boost undergraduate scholarships. By October 2008, with more than 80 percent of that goal reached, the university's corporation increased the goal to $400 million.

The additional scholarship aid is timely, given the economic recession and families' growing concerns with paying for higher education.

"In her earliest messages to faculty, staff and students about the likely impact of the coming recession, President Ruth Simmons named undergraduate financial aid as one of the core institutional programs that would be preserved at all costs," said Brown Chancellor Thomas J. Tisch. "The consistently generous support of corporation members, alumni, parents and friends for this crucially important effort has been deeply gratifying to the entire Brown community."

The corporation also approved more than $30 million in additional gifts, including:
$10 million, half to support an endowed scholarship fund and half to support the renovation of the Metcalf complex for the Mind Brain Behavior program;
$4 million for a new aquatics center; $4 million for the Brown Annual Fund;
$5 million for the renovation and endowment of the reading room at the John Hay Library; $4.7 million worth of manuscripts for the library; $1 million for the Creative Arts Center;
$1 million for the endowment for the Fund for the Children of Providence; and $1 million for endowed scholarships.

For more information, visit: brown.edu

 Tags  Brown University

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