Higher education is becoming the newest playground for billionaires

Bloomberg/Getty Images This post originally appeared in the Business Insider Today newsletter. You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here . Ken Griffin's latest bet? South Florida's higher education. The billionaire hedge fund manager gifted $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University , with $2 billion earmarked to develop a Miami campus for the Pittsburgh-based school. Griffin has a history of shelling out big to schools. Back in 2023, he gave Harvard University, his alma mater, the school's largest-ever donation . While that gift was "unrestricted," the Carnegie Mellon one has a clear intent: developing talent in his backyard. In recent years, no one has been a bigger backer of Miami and the broader South Florida region than Griffin, who grew up there. He's relocated the headquarters of his two companies (Citadel and Citadel Securities) there and poured money into initiatives across the city.