The list of billionaire celebrities and founders pouring fortunes into classrooms is growing: Kanye West, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have all sought to shake up schools. Some have even built their own. But it turns out, fixing a deeply flawed system is harder than it looks.
If you can name a billionaire, odds are, they’ve given some of their philanthropic stash to the world of education.
Perhaps the most notable are the efforts of Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, who have donated billions of dollars to reshape thousands of classrooms with enhanced algebra and professional development. Michael Bloomberg, too, has donated billions through efforts like making medical school free for most students at Johns Hopkins University.
Considering education is a gateway to success and opportunity, it’s no wonder that the ultra rich find it attractive for their philanthropy, says Fredrick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a policy think tank.
However, instead of trying to help fix existing issues with the education system, other billionaires have taken a different avenue with their money: starting their own schools from the ground up.
Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are both funding new Montessori-inspired preschools that focus on things like self-expression and global discovery. Fellow members of the ultra rich like Mark Zuckerberg, WeWork’s Adam Neumann, and Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) have also helped found new schools. But some attempts are becoming more known for the failure of their investments rather than their impact.
Education philanthropy can be a money pit
According to Ben Wallerstein, co-founder and CEO of Whiteboard Advisors, an education consulting firm, education philanthropy is a flawed beast—with no perfect solution.
“Education is a system that’s made up of people who are dedicated, passionate, hard working, who collectively and in aggregate, don’t achieve the results that they would hope to achieve,” Wallerstein tells Fortune.
In 2014, Zuckerberg and his wife helped open an institute called The Primary School to help alleviate the financial pressures of getting a high-quality early education. In total, two tuition-free schools serving low-income elementary and middle school students were opened in California. However, last month, they abruptly announced they would close at the end of the school year. While the reasons for the closure aren’t entirely clear, finances appear to be part of the problem.
Brooke Koka, a parent and board member of the school, told the San Francisco Chronicle the school had been struggling financially and had struggled to find donors beyond the initial Zuckerberg investment. The school hoped to one day be sustained on public funding.
After receiving a request for comment, The Primary School and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative pointed Fortune to the institute’s website.
“This was a very difficult decision, and we are committed to ensuring a thoughtful and supportive transition for students and families over the next year,” The Primary School said in a posted statement.
Zuckerberg, whose net worth is now estimated at $223 billion, has a long history with education philanthropy.
In 2010, he went on The Oprah Winfrey Show to announce he was donating $100 million to reform public schools in Newark, New Jersey, with other philanthropists matching his donation for a total of $200 million.
However, years later, experts are still divided on the long-term impacts of his gift. One study found that students had seen significant progress in English but no changes in math, and a former Newark mayor called the donation a “parachute” solution that failed to appropriately engage with local community members.
Ye’s attempt at education was also ambitious, but short lived. The rapper opened Donda Academy, a private Christian school for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students, in the fall of 2022. But just months later, the school shut its doors following outrage over a series of his posts on social media that were blasted for being antisemitic.
A year later, lawsuits from former teachers alleged that the school inconsistently paid its employees and had serious health and safety issues. For example, one allegation was that because Ye did not “like glass,” students were left “exposed to the elements” due to the building’s empty window frames. Ye settled one of the lawsuits earlier this year, according to People.
‘Philanthropy is like risk capital’
Whether it be a new school or major philanthropic donation, Wallerstein says failure is not uncommon.
“I think in some cases what some folks might view as failures actually reflect a degree of situational awareness and self awareness, about, wow, this problem is a lot harder than we thought,” he says.
“Philanthropy is like risk capital. You build things, you test things, you scale things, you see what works, you kill bad ideas,” Wallerstein added.
Despite the education system’s flaws, change is not always welcome, and outsiders’ attempts at innovation can often have unintended consequences.
In the early 2010s, business leaders from companies like Exxon Mobil, GE, and Intel backed Common Core educational standards, but quickly found themselves on the wrong side of a rebellion against federal oversight into the classroom.
“It’s really easy for well-meaning donors to wind up accidentally politicizing things or making sensible ideas seem like they’re being pushed by shadowy outsiders,” Hess says.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
