Huge Quarter-Billion Dollar Donation to Centre College Withdrawn

A little over a month ago, you may recall, Centre College in Danville, Kentucky got the news that it would be receiving $250 million in stock that would fund a scholarship program for collegians studying natural sciences, economics and computational sciences.

Well, now, the donation, believed to be one of the largest gifts to an institution of higher education in American history, has been withdrawn.

The small liberal arts college, which hosted vice presidential debates in both 2000 and 2012, announced on Monday that the creation of the Brockman Scholars Program in Leadership and Entrepreneurship has not happened fast enough to satisfy the A. Eugene Brockman Charitable Trust, the program's benefactor.

Centre College said that the donation hinged on a "significant capital market event" and that both sides of the deal couldn't arrive at a finalization in the available time given.

Needless to say, it's a sad occasion for the college which would have benefited richly from such a sum of money. It's nearly unfathomable to think how many students could have had extraordinary opportunities laid before them with a quarter of a billion dollars available in a scholarship fund.

But, onward and upward. Centre College President John Roush will continue to pursue the creation of the types of scholarships that this donation was set to initiate.

But you can't help but think, "What might have been..."