UCF receives $40 million donation from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott

ORLANDO, Fla. — The University of Central Florida is getting the largest donation in its 58-year history.

Mackenzie Scott, philanthropist and the ex-wife of Amazon owner and billionaire Jeff Bezos, is donating $40 million to UCF.

READ: UCF students help local Asian community heal after rise in violent attacks in US

It’s part of her effort to give more than $2.7 billion to “high impact organizations.”

The university said some of the money will create new programs for students, scholarships for researchers and more.

“It was an extremely emotional moment for me because initially, I didn’t believe it was true,” UCF President Alexander Cartwright said.

Scott broke the news with a tweet leading to a blog post where she wrote, “we are governed by a humbling belief that it would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands, and that the solutions are best designed and implemented by others.”

Amongst the organizations receiving donations are nine universities and 22 colleges that her team decided were “institutions successfully educating students who come from communities that have been chronically underserved.”

At UCF, 19% of undergraduate students are first-generation college students.