ASU Business School Gets $25 Million for Real Estate Education
Credit: Bonnie Jo Mount / The Washington Post / Getty Images- The W.P. Carey Foundation committed $25 million to Arizona State’s business school.
- The donation will help the school launch an expanded real estate center and an undergraduate degree.
- The commitment brings W.P. Carey’s total commitment to the business school to more than $100 million.
- The new undergraduate degree will launch in fall 2025.
Arizona State University (ASU) just landed a $25 million donation to bolster real estate education — the latest in a series of major wins for its business school this year.
The W.P. Carey Foundation committed $25 million to expand (and name) the W.P. Carey Center for Real Estate and Finance at the W.P. Carey School of Business at ASU, according to a press release.
Yes, they share a namesake: The business school got its W.P. Carey name in 2003 when the same foundation pledged $50 million. The $25 million for real estate education brings the W.P. Carey Foundation’s total commitment to the business school to more than $100 million.
ASU has since molded its business school into one of the country’s leading programs. That has been particularly evident with its recent embrace of artificial intelligence (AI) to go along with a universitywide partnership with ChatGPT creator OpenAI.
That trend of launching new degrees will continue with the latest W.P. Carey donation: ASU plans to launch an undergraduate real estate degree program in fall 2025.
“The W.P. Carey Foundation’s generous support will bolster our real estate program to be among the best in the country,” W.P. Carey School Dean Ohad Kadan said in the release. “Real estate accounts for a large portion of the U.S. GDP (gross domestic product), and yet is underrepresented in business school education.”
ASU President Michael M. Crow said in the release that real estate “has been a central component to the economic development engine that drives Arizona and that will continue to be central to our progress as the state and its economy mature in the years ahead.”
The W.P. Carey Foundation — launched by the philanthropist founder and namesake of the W.P. Carey real estate financing firm William P. Carey — has a long track record of major donations to business and legal education across the country.
That includes a $125 million donation to the University of Pennsylvania in 2019 to rename its law school the Carey Law School and other gifts toward the Carey Business School at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.
“A true partnership goes beyond just a monetary transaction, as it has to be rooted in shared vision, goals, and values,” Kadan said. “The W.P. Carey Foundation is a true partner to us in that way.”
Arizona State’s new real estate degree will complement a host of recent innovations at the W.P. Carey School of Business. The school earlier this year announced new degrees in AI and financial technology (fintech).
Daniel Mazzola, a clinical professor in the information systems department at the W.P. Carey School of Business, previously told BestColleges that W.P. Carey’s scale and vast resources help it stay on top of current trends in business education.