Tiny California B-School Gets $100 Million Gift

U.C. San Diego Rady School of Management

But while elite schools such as Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Haas in Berkeley may not have to worry about Rady nipping at their heels anytime soon, that doesn’t mean they’re entirely safe from Sullivan and his bulging bag of new loot: the Rady School will be looking to draw faculty from those schools and other top institutions, Sullivan says. Rady’s gift “allows us to recruit faculty within a very competitive market that will be viewed as among the best faculty in the country, period,” Sullivan says. He’s planning to add dozens of professors, to bring the faculty total up to 65 or 70, he says. And he has a history of plucking professors from elite schools including Wharton, MIT, the University of Chicago Booth School, NYU, and Stanford. The school’s location in lovely La Jolla, a posh oceanside suburb of San Diego, is a strong asset for faculty and student recruitment.

Rady, the Canadian-born investor and founder of American Assets, is content to let Sullivan use the $100 million gift as he sees fit. “I’m not an educator,” Rady says. “I’ve followed his vision and it’s proved to be accurate. I don’t have another vision that I would propose.”

DONOR SEEKS A LASTING LEGACY

The timing was right for the huge donation, says Rady, 77. “I’m getting older and I ain’t gonna be around forever,” Rady says, “and I’d like the school to be around and do excellent work and prepare its students for an excellent career which will employ people and give them good careers and help the economy and all those other good things.”

Full-time MBA tuition costs $44,000 per year at Rady for in-state students, and $49,000 for out of state students. The school has a 41% acceptance rate, with average incoming students’ GMAT rate at 660 and GPAs at 3.43.

This week’s announcement of Rady’s gift follows a March 30 announcement that Boston University received a $50 million naming gift from retailing mogul Allen Questrom and his wife, Kelli.

Largest Gifts To Business Schools

Source: AACSB list

DON’T MISS: BU GETS $50 MILLION NAMING GIFT; UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN DIEGO, RADY SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT