The University of South Carolina posted a banner fundraising year, shattering its previous record by nearly $100 million and joining several other major universities—including the University of Oklahoma, Florida State University, and the University of Tennessee—that logged record-breaking donor years in 2025.

The USC system raised a record $357.6 million in private donations during fiscal year 2026, up from its previous record of $259.7 million set just one year earlier—a jump of nearly 38%. The run of records underscores the role private philanthropy now plays at large public research universities, where gifts fund scholarships, endowed faculty positions, research, and campus facilities.

Several large investments led the record-breaking year, including one from the Robert and Janice McNair Foundation, established by the late billionaire Houston Texans founder Robert McNair, who died in November 2018. Janice McNair recently died on July 14, 2026.

Robert, a 1958 USC graduate, and his wife, Janice, established the McNair Scholars program at USC in 1998. The merit-based scholarship is offered each year to the top 20 out-of-state students entering the South Carolina Honors College. Flagship merit awards of this kind—such as UNC-Chapel Hill's Morehead-Cain and the University of Virginia's Jefferson Scholars—have become fixtures at public universities seeking to draw high-achieving students from beyond their home states.

"Those who demonstrate outstanding academic achievements with a commitment to service and leadership represent our future," Robert and Janice McNair said in a joint statement published on their foundation's website. "We are delighted to provide scholarships to these deserving students."

In 2026, the Robert and Janice McNair Foundation donated $25 million to USC—roughly 7% of the year's record total—continuing the couple's longstanding philanthropic partnership with the university. All in, the foundation has given at least $81 million to USC since 1998, beginning with a $20 million gift to launch the McNair Scholars program. Other major gifts included $10 million to sustain the scholars program, $8 million to found the McNair Institute for Entrepreneurism and Free Enterprise, $18 million for more scholar awards, and the $25 million gift this year.

It is unclear whether the $25 million gift is going toward just the scholars program. The foundation did not immediately respond to Fortune's request for comment.

How Robert McNair made his fortune—and gave it away

McNair's path to billionaire status was not linear. He spent most of his 20s and 30s as a struggling salesman and unsuccessful entrepreneur before breaking through with cogeneration company Cogen Technologies, which grew into the world's largest privately owned cogeneration company.

"Many people say I was an overnight success, and I was, after 20 years of struggling," McNair told Houston Lifestyles & Homes.

The payoff came in 1999, when McNair sold Cogen to Enron for $1.5 billion—two years before the energy giant's collapse into bankruptcy amid an accounting scandal. He used the windfall to win the NFL's 32nd franchise, the Houston Texans, for $700 million that same year, and the team began play in 2002.

But the McNairs channeled their fortune into far more than football. Making education and medical research the cornerstones of their giving, the couple contributed more than half a billion dollars to charity over the decades.

Robert also served on Baylor College of Medicine's board of trustees in Waco, Texas, from 1994 until his death, and in 2007 the McNairs gave $100 million to Baylor—tying the largest donation in the school's history—to fund research into breast and pancreatic cancer, juvenile diabetes, and the neurosciences. The gift helped establish the McNair Medical Institute, and the campus was later named in their honor.

Their reach extended well beyond Texas. The couple seeded programs at USC, Rice University, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and Texas Children's Hospital.

Closer to Robert's roots, the Robert and Janice McNair Educational Foundation, launched three decades ago for students at his old North Carolina high school, has awarded nearly $9 million in scholarships and transformed college readiness across his hometown of Rutherford County, N.C.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.