Price Family Donates $50M to School of Public Policy

For the School of Policy, Planning and Development, the price is right.  The family of Sol Price, the founder of retail giant Price Club, has made a $50 million naming gift to the school.

President Max Nikias announced the donation to students in an email Tuesday morning. Formerly the School of Policy, Planning and Development, Nikias believes that the Sol Price School of Public Policy will benefit greatly from this donation.

"This visionary gift will enable us to take the school to an even higher level of academic excellence, ensuring that it becomes an international leader in its many fields of expertise," Nikias wrote to students in his email. 

"Sol Price possessed a deep understanding of the interplay between the public sector, private industry, and nonprofit organizations to improve the quality of life for individuals and communities," a statement from the school read.  "He also recognized the great value of an interdisciplinary approach to bring about social and economic change, including all the major fields of our school."

Sol Price earned his Bachelor's degree from USC in 1936 and his Juris Doctor degree in 1938. Price later founded Price Club, a warehouse-style store, which eventually merged with Costco in 1993. 

In his later years, Price created two philanthropic foundations, the Price Family Charitable Fund and Price Charities, both of which work to improve the lives of families and communities.

Price died in 2009.

Price's passion for doing good has influenced the way in which this donation will be used, as part of the money will be used to create the USC Price Center for Social Innovation. This new school will focus on re-building and revitalizing low income neighborhoods. 

"The impact of the Price Family Charitable Fund's extraordinary generosity will be both stellar and enduring. It will forever stand proudly as an inspiration to the Trojan Family," Nikias wrote. 

The school is currently ranked seventh out of the 296 schools of public affairs across the country and provides degree programs in public policy and public administration, urban planning, real estate development, and health care management and policy. 

USC has received an impressive number of donations in the past year, the largest being a $200 million gift from David Dornsife and his wife, Dana, to the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.