David Howse, president of the California College of the Arts (CCA), delivered grim news last summer to his faculty and students: given rapidly declining enrollment, the college’s future was in serious peril. Less than a year later, the nonprofit arts college has received a lifeline thanks to the philanthropy of Nvidia (NVDA) founder and CEO Jensen Huang.
The Jen-Hsun (Jensen Huang’s Chinese name) and Lori Huang Foundation, founded by Huang and his wife nearly two decades ago, is donating a staggering $22.5 million to the San Francisco-based school—the largest gift in its history. The donation matches additional funds raised from other individuals and entities connected to either the college or local arts and tech communities, giving the CCA a total of nearly $45 million to address its financial struggles.
Huang’s foundation “saw an opportunity both to support CCA in this time of need and also to challenge others to rise to the moment,” said Howse in a statement. Like other nonprofit arts colleges across the U.S., CAA has faced mounting challenges in recent years amid a dramatic drop-off in enrollment exacerbated by demographic factors and the Covid-19 pandemic. In August, the school announced a series of cost-cutting measures, such as layoffs, as it faced a $20 million deficit.
Besides addressing its deficit, CCA said its new funds will be earmarked for program launches and future fundraising opportunities. The school was founded more than a century ago and focuses primarily on art, architecture, design and writing; offering 22 undergraduate and 10 graduate programs.
Huang is currently the world’s 11th richest person with an estimated net worth of $121.8 billion—an achievement enabled largely by Nvidia’s dominance in today’s A.I. boom. The chipmaker’s graphics processing units (GPUs) have become a rare commodity amongst tech developers scrambling to power their A.I. products, with companies like Microsoft (MSFT), Meta (META) and Google (GOOGL) pouring billions of dollars into Nvidia’s sought-after hardware.
While the bulk of the Huang Foundation’s donations have been funneled into donor-advised funds, a type of philanthropic savings account utilized by the wealthy, the nonprofit has also supported a number of educational institutions over the years.
In 2023, for example, it gave $10 million to Oregon State University (OSU), which both Huang and his wife Lori attended. The couple previously pledged $50 million to their alma mater in 2022 to build a supercomputing complex. And in 2008, they gave $30 million to help establish an engineering center at Stanford, where Huang received a degree in electrical engineering back in 1992. The billionaire’s donations have additionally benefited the Oneida Baptist Institute, a Kentucky boarding school he attended that received $2 million from Huang in 2019.
While CCA isn’t one of the Nvidia founder’s alma maters, the arts school’s alumni are well-connected across Silicon Valley. Graduates are frequently pursued by the likes of Google and Apple (AAPL), according to the school. Huang’s foundation “recognizes the essential intersection of technology, art and design in driving innovation,” said Eric Jensen, chief operating officer of the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation, in a statement. “Our investment in CCA reflects our commitment to supporting institutions that cultivate the creative leaders of tomorrow.”
Huang isn’t the only tech billionaire injecting capital into arts education across Silicon Valley. Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, led a nonprofit’s acquisition of the San Francisco Art Institute last year. The school, which will now house an artist residency program, went bankrupt in 2023—making CCA San Francisco’s last standing nonprofit arts college.
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