Through the breadth of donors’ generosity, our talented undergraduates can have access to scholarship funds, research opportunities, studying abroad, and so much more. Meanwhile, gifts ensure the excellence of our graduate programs so we can attract the best and brightest to mentor undergraduates and innovate alongside our world-class faculty.

The generosity of benefactors is critical to advancing the university’s commitment to serving its community, advancing the public good, and ensuring future generations of educated leaders. Berkeley’s brilliant students are incredibly grateful.

The University of California was established under the Morrill Land Grant Act, which sought to make higher education free and accessible. Students still had to pay fees at the time though. Even in the university’s earliest days, this presented a challenge to many students. Recognizing this need, Levi Strauss donated the money to help create 28 scholarships in 1897.

Since the time Strauss donated to Berkeley’s first scholarship program, tuition has increased as state support has waned, and the cost of education has risen steadily. Incidentally — or perhaps not — Strauss funded the installation of lighting in the Library so students could study after dark.

Strengthening that legacy of light for students, Strauss’s great-great-great-nephew, Bob Haas, and his wife Colleen, made a gift totaling $24 million, announced in 2020. More than half of this gift will permanently endow the Haas Scholars Program, which recruits Berkeley students from diverse backgrounds to focus on specialized, yearlong senior research projects.

Out of that $24 million gift from the couple, who has made other scholarship gifts, $10 million was given in matching funds for the Haas Family Fiat Lux Scholarship, establishing one of the largest scholarship gifts in Berkeley’s history. The scholarships will allow Berkeley dreams to become reality for scores of exceptional first-generation students. “Let there be light,” indeed.

Meanwhile, Roger J. Kang ’98 and his family established the Kang Family Fellowship to support graduate students in biotechnology. His generosity also enables Berkeley to launch a new master’s program in biotechnology to help graduate students carve dynamic careers for themselves while shining their light on the world.

Ripple effects for generations of graduate students are amplified thanks to the legacy of economics alum Steven Sidener ’82. His estate gift, the largest-ever gift to the Department of Economics, creates a fund to support fellowships, graduate student research, and the graduate program in the Department of Economics.