Kenneth Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel, has donated $20 million to Miami Dade College (MDC) and $25 million to Success Academy Charter Schools in New York City.

The largest gift in MDC history will establish a scholarship fund focused on students graduating from high school in Miami-Dade County. Students offered support from the Griffin Scholarship Fund will receive assistance for tuition, books, and study abroad opportunities, as well as wraparound services that include access to tutors and career coaches, emergency financial assistance, and help transferring to four-year colleges. According to the college, half of MDC students are the first in their families to go to college and more than half are from low-income households.

“The Griffin Scholarship Fund will transform countless lives in our community and accelerate our mission to ensure that every student has a path to economic mobility,” said MDC president Madeline Pumariega.

The gift to Success Academy will enable the enrollment of an additional 10,000 students in the organization’s evidence-based K-12 education programs—an increase of more than 50 percent over the next five years. According to Success Academy, its students—95 percent of whom are children of color—regularly outperform their peers at affluent suburban and gifted-and-talented schools, with 100 percent of seniors over the past six years accepted to four-year colleges and universities.

“So many poor children are left out of the American Dream because they are assigned to a failing school,” said Success Academy founder and CEO Eva Moskowitz. “We share Ken’s vision of the future for our nation, where every child, regardless of their circumstances, has access to a great school.”

(Photo credit: Wikimedia/Citadel/Paul Elledge)