Giving Compass' Take:

· According to Jerica Deck at Global Citizen, Michael Bloomberg has donated $1.8 billion, the largest donation ever noted for US schools, to help low-income students attend college.

· How will this money be used to help these students? How does this donation help close the education inequality gap? 

· Here's more on Michael Bloomberg's donations to education. 

When Michael Bloomberg graduated from Johns Hopkins, he could only afford to donate $5 back to the institution. Now the eighth richest person in the US, Bloomberg just donated $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins, which will help talented low-income students be able to afford a quality education, the New York Times reports.

“America is at its best when we reward people based on the quality of their work, not the size of their pocketbook,” wrote Bloomberg in an op-ed for the Times. “Denying students entry to a college based on their ability to pay undermines equal opportunity. It perpetuates intergenerational poverty.”

Bloomberg’s father was a bookkeeper that never made over $6,000 per year. Bloomberg needed a National Defense loan and a job on campus in order to afford to go to John Hopkins, a school he credits for changing his life.

Now he’s changing the lives of other low- and mid-income students. His million-dollar donation will allow Hopkins to remain need-blind, which will allow the school to accept applicants based on ability and potential rather than financial status. In the statement, Bloomberg said that his donation is the largest donation to ever be given to an academic institution in the US. Ronald J. Daniels, the president of Johns Hopkins University, said that over the years Bloomberg has donated a combined $3.35 billion to John Hopkins.

Read the full article about helping low-income students by Jerica Deck at Global Citizen.