Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, has announced a $23.5 million gift from Bill and Sue Gross to endow undergraduate and medical school scholarships, as well as support business school faculty members.

Gross, chief investment officer and a founder of Newport Beach, California-based PIMCO, one of the world's largest bond management firms, is an undergraduate alumnus of Duke and a former scholarship recipient. Following his graduation from the school, Gross served in the United States Navy before pursuing his MBA degree at UCLA. While a patient at Duke Hospital following an automobile accident, he read a book about beating the odds in gambling and subsequently earned in Las Vegas the money he used to attend business school.

"Few investors can match Bill Gross's foresight and remarkable record of success," said Duke president Richard H. Brodhead. "Now he and Sue are making an investment in the lives of countless students, whose Duke education will benefit them and all those it will enable them to serve. Continuing to attract excellent students and enlarging the endowment to support our 'need-blind' admissions policy are among my highest priorities, and I am profoundly grateful that the Grosses have so generously supported these important goals."