Purdue Will Expand Business School Thanks to $50M Gift

Updated on February 15, 2023

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The White Family Foundation made the gift in the name of the late Bruce White, who was a Purdue alum, former trustee, and longtime benefactor.

A large sculpture stands on the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 22, 2012. Administrative costs on college campuses are soaring, crowding out instruction at a time of skyrocketing tuition and $1 trillion in outstanding student loans. At Purdue and other U.S. college campuses, bureaucratic growth is pitting professors against administrators and sparking complaints that tight budgets could be spent more efficiently. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Credit: Image Credit: Daniel Acker / Bloomberg / Getty Images

Purdue University hopes to increase undergraduate enrollment in its business school to 4,000.
The gift from the White Family Foundation will establish an undergraduate institution within Purdue’s School of Management/Business.
The White Family Foundation previously established the real estate finance minor with a $20.8 million commitment.

A gift from the White Family Foundation will help Purdue University expand its undergraduate business school program.

The West Lafayette, Indiana, university announced a $50 million gift from the Dean and Barbara White Family Foundation to revamp the Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business.

The gift will launch the Bruce White Undergraduate Institute within the business school, named after the former alum, trustee member, and longtime benefactor who died on Jan. 19.

“The naming after Bruce White, one of the most prominent Boilermakers our university has ever known, is particularly meaningful to us,” President Mung Chiang said in a press release. “This gift ensures Purdue will educate exceptional undergraduate business students who will create and grow competitive businesses in a technology-driven, free-market economy.”

According to the press release, the gift will create a revised curriculum based on 2021-2022 pilot programs to help students lead at the intersection of business and technology.

The integrated business and engineering and business analytics course pilots had twice the number of expected students at launch. The school hopes to increase the courses’ enrollment to 1,600 students, 40% of the undergraduate population.

The business school also hopes to increase its enrollment to 4,000 undergraduates and 2,000 graduate students by 2028, grow tenure-track and clinical faculty, and add building space.

The White Family Foundation also established the real estate finance minor in April 2022 with a $20.8 million commitment.

“The White Family Foundation’s commitment to an increasingly prominent Purdue inspired us to imagine a business school that addresses the need to reshape business education and produce technology-based graduates who build and lead successful companies,” said Daniels, a past Purdue president. “Their gifts provide tremendous momentum to realize our goals.”