About Red McCombs' Gift

In May 2000, San Antonio businessman Red McCombs gave a $50 million cash gift to The University of Texas at Austin College of Business Administration and Graduate School of Business.

To honor McCombs for his extraordinary gift, the UT System Board of Regents authorized the school to rename itself the Red McCombs School of Business.

McCombs believes that his investment in the business school, which he attended in the 1940s, will have a far reaching effect because of the students.

"This school is the blood supply for the growth and the hope of Texas and the nation," he said. "This is not a gift, it's an investment."

In the past 20 years, the McCombs School Business School has risen in national standings. U.S. News and World Report consistently ranks the McCombs School's MBA program within the top 20 in the nation and the undergraduate program among the top five. The school is noted for innovative programs in technology, entrepreneurship and globalization.

McCombs’ gift provides half the capital for a $100 million endowment fund to further increase the school's stature.  Disbursed annually, the gift permits the school to greatly increase faculty productivity, attract more star-quality faculty, improve student programs and pursue the goal of becoming the best public business school in the nation.

In 2000, the McCombs School established the McCombs Matching Fund Program, which allows donors of selected endowments to effectively double their gifts, creating endowments with twice the impact for the school.

Ninety percent of the gift is being used to match new endowments and $5 million is in current use. 

The school has also allocated this $5 million to help build The University of Texas at Austin Executive Education and Conference Center, which will herald in a new era of Texas Executive Education.