William Polk Carey gave $50 million in 2003 to rename Arizona State University's business school after himself.

Now, seven years after his death, his foundation is giving the school another $25 million, ASU said Tuesday.

Carey, a New York real estate investor, first donated $50 million to the school in 2003, which led to ASU naming the college's business school the W.P. Carey School of Business.

Now, the W.P. Carey Foundation will give $25 million as part of a fundraising push to bring in $50 million in new money to the business school. The donation isn't contingent on any additional fundraising.

Of the $25 million Carey gift, $10 million will go toward recruiting prominent professors and researchers, ASU said. The other $15 million will be dedicated to career services, like those that help students find internships and jobs.

Carey died of cardiac arrest in 2012 at age 81.

The additional $25 million gift represents a "double-down" on ASU and its mission to providing high-quality education and increasing access to it, said William P. Carey II, the foundation's chairman and W.P. Carey's great-nephew.

After seeing the effect the first major donation in 2003 had, the foundation wanted to cement its commitment to ASU, he said. He pointed to the school's public-private partnerships and how the university has aided Phoenix's redevelopment as examples of the school's growth.

"I like to think the foundation played a role in that in creating a lot of economic development by having fantastic, trained business minds through the W.P. Carey school," he said.

The donation is the second major donation received by ASU in the past few months. In October, the university announced a $30 million gift from Mike and Cindy Watts, the founders of Sunstate Equipment. That gift renamed the school's public service college, now called the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions.

Carey school's progress since 2003

When W.P. Carey announced his $50 million donation in 2003, he said he wanted to see ASU rise in business school rankings. He hoped ASU would enter the top-25 nationally for business colleges.

"The most important thing for Arizona is having a great business school so it can attract people and grow the economy," Carey told The Arizona Republic in 2003.

At the time, the $50 million donation was the second-largest ever given to a business school in the country. The school put great effort into courting Carey back then. Former ASU President Lattie Coor and current President Michael Crow, who took over in 2002, both met with him to pitch the school. Carey came to ASU and talked with students. He was also given an honorary law degree by the university.

Since then, enrollment at W.P. Carey has doubled — it now has nearly 16,000 students.

ASU hasn't quite made it to the top-25, though. The school's full-time master's of business administration program ranks 29th in the country, while its undergraduate business programs rank 30th, according to U.S. News & World Report.

“The Foundation’s support over the years has resulted in ASU having one of the top-rated and most highly sought-after business schools in the country," Crow said in a statement about the donation.

Amy Hillman, the Carey School's dean, said the school has done a "very good job" using the initial $50 million gift, and the foundation's donating big again confirms it.

"I know we’ve improved," she said of the school's progress since 2003.

But there's always more to do to get better, and the $25 million gift will allow for further improvement, she said.

Who was W.P. Carey?

W.P. Carey made his fortune in real estate, founding W.P. Carey & Co. According to his obituary in the New York Times, the company had about $12 billion in assets globally.

His company used "innovative" sale-leaseback deals, which involve a new owner buying a building then leasing it back to the original owners, his Times obituary said. One of those sale-leaseback deals involved buying 21 floors of the New York Times building in 2009.

Carey had strong ties to Arizona and ASU. Besides the real estate development deals he did in Arizona, Carey was also the grandson of John S. Armstrong, considered the "father of ASU."

Armstrong was Tempe's representative to Arizona's territorial legislature, before Arizona became a state. He helped start the Arizona Normal School, which eventually became ASU.

What the money will support

The $15 million dedicated to improving career services will help first-generation students at the university, ASU said. The money will go toward increasing job placement rates and helping students find better-paying jobs after graduation.

It will also boost mentoring programs.

“This sort of generosity can help shift the competitive balance for employers that hire our graduates while rewriting the story of hundreds of hard-working families each year," Hillman said in a statement.

The $10 million put aside for faculty will set up an endowment for two new faculty appointments, to be called the "Carey Chairs."

Hillman told The Republic that students will notice better resources, from enhanced career services to world-class faculty, as a result of the donation.

"It is really a signal that even though Bill Carey has passed, his legacy is going to thrive here because we have been stewards of that earlier gift," she said, referring to the $50 million initial donation.

Other major Carey donations

ASU isn't the only school to get big-dollar donations from Carey — and ASU doesn't have the only school named after the Carey family.

In 2006, Carey gave $50 million to Johns Hopkins University for it to start the Carey Business School.

In 2011, he gave $30 million to the University of Maryland's law school, renaming it the Francis King Carey School of Law, after his grandfather.

The foundation also gave a $10 million endowment in 2015 to the University of Pennsylvania for a joint law and business program, now called the Francis J. & Wm. Polk Carey JD/MBA Program.

Largest naming gifts at ASU

William Polk Carey: $50 million to name the W.P. Carey School of Business.

Julie Ann Wrigley: $50 million to the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability.

Ira A. Fulton: $50 million to the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

Mike and Cindy Watts: $30 million to the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions

T. Denny Sanford: $25 million for the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics.

Gary K. Herberger: $25 million for the Gary K. Herberger Young Scholars Academy.

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