It may seem like a Christmas miracle but Cornell University is now a believer. They just received a grant worth $350 million dollars. The donation is the corner stone for the new high-tech graduate school on Roosevelt Island. Cornell University itself is located upstate in Ithaca, New York, but the graduate school will be located in the heart of New York City.

The donation is the single largest contribution of its kind to Cornell. The donor is Charles F. Feeney, a former student of the Ithaca campus, who made billions through the Duty Free Shoppers Group. Feeney has spent the last couple of decades making anonymous charitable contributions to schools all over the world. In fact, it was recently revealed that he has donated $600 million to Cornell over the years, although no buildings there bear his name. That might change though, considering the size and importance of this grant. To further your education come to bachelor degree online for a degree you will love.

Mr. Feeney is one of those old school millionaires. While he is worth billions you wouldn\’t always know it. He doesn\’t own a home nor a car and he wears a $15 dollar watch. He is well known for his generosity and has a particular fondness for medical research.

He founded Atlantic Philanthropies and moved the majority of his $2.1 billion dollar empire into the foundation. He plans on giving it all away by 2021. The last two years have seen the organization give away over $600 million to various causes.

The new development was the source of a much heated bidding war. The winning bid finally went to Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Cornell. A recent press conference with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg made the partnership official.

The entire plan costs an ambitious $2 billion dollars. It would also consist of $150 million dollar fund that to help new companies that remain in New York for 3 years. They estimate that it will create some 20,000 construction jobs, launch 600 businesses in the next few decades and create as much as $1.4 billion in badly needed tax money. It would also provide science and math education support for 10,000 children in New York.

Mayor Bloomberg hopes to have New York become the new technological capital of the world. Another ambitious plan that they hope will surpass Silicon Valley\’s importance. In fact, city officials spent two whole months reading over 10,000 pages in 7 proposals from 17 institutions. They chose the Cornell plan because it was the most ambitious of the proposals.

Off-site classes are planned to start offering off site courses as early as next September. However, the entire 2 million square feet facility won\’t be completed until 2037. It will hosts 2,500 graduate student as well as training around 200 teachers a year.