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# Ex-RAND employee gives $10M to RAND Graduate School
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/ex-rand-employee-gives-10m-to-rand-graduate-school/
- Published: 2003-12-03T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T03:17:36.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Education, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Daily Press staff*

Former RAND Corporation analyst Frederick S. Pardee has donated $10 million to the RAND Graduate School, RAND president and CEO James A. Thomson announced today.

The donation is the largest ever made by an individual to RAND, a nonprofit research corporation, and one of the largest gifts ever by an individual to a single Ph.D. program in the United States. It will be added to the endowment of PRGS, which stood at $4.3 million before the new donation. This endowment ensures that PRGS remains self-supporting.

"This generous gift ensures that the Pardee RAND Graduate School will continue its outstanding work and produce graduates who will help build a better world and help find solutions to the greatest challenges facing humankind," Thomson said.

In appreciation of Pardee’s donation, the graduate school has been renamed the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School.

Founded in 1970 as one of America’s original eight graduate programs in public policy and the only one based at a think tank, PRGS has awarded more doctorates in policy analysis than any other institution.

All PRGS students receive fellowships that pay for all tuition costs and health care, and a stipend based on the work they perform on RAND research projects. Past graduates of PRGS have gone on to careers in government, business, nonprofit institutions and academia.

Pardee, 71, worked as an economic analyst at RAND from 1957 to 1971 and went on to become a real-estate investor. He recalled that when he first joined RAND, he was making $7,500 a year and never imagined he would ever be in a position to donate millions to support the work of his employer.

"I don’t consider this a gift to RAND," Pardee said. "I consider it a gift to the world, because PRGS graduates will work to change the world for the better.”

Pardee also donated $5 million to RAND in 2001 to create the RAND Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition. The center works to explore trends and potential developments in the world 35 to 200 years into the future. Pardee had previously donated $10 million to create a similar center for the study of the future at Boston University. The philanthropist earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from BU’s School of Management in 1954.

“I’ve concluded that one is placed here to make a difference, and I want to make a difference by supporting institutions that will shape the future," Pardee said.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 3, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/120303.pdf?ref=smdp.com)