MacKenzie Scott, one of the world’s most influential philanthropists and the former spouse of Jeff Bezos, is now known for giving away billions with no conditions attached.

But long before her fortune and global reach, she learned what it meant to be on the receiving end of generosity.

As a sophomore at Princeton nearly twenty-five years ago, Scott faced the possibility of dropping out if she could not find one thousand dollars.

Her roommate at the time, Ginny Tarkenton, discovered her in tears and immediately asked her father for the money.

“I would have given MacKenzie my left kidney,” Tarkenton said recently.

“That’s just what you do for friends”.

Today, Scott’s wealth is estimated at approximately thirty-four billion dollars.

In October, Scott wrote that Tarkenton’s act of kindness was one of the many moments she revisited as she gave away more than nineteen billion dollars — wealth accumulated largely through Amazon shares received during her 2019 divorce from Bezos.

And when Tarkenton founded Funding U, a loan company offering achievement-based financing to low-income students without requiring co-signers, Scott said she felt compelled to help.

A quarter-century had passed between their sophomore year and the creation of Funding U — years during which Tarkenton watched rising tuition costs push more students into situations like Scott’s.

When Scott expressed interest in her old friend’s mission to help economically disadvantaged students stay in school, Tarkenton was not surprised.

Scott’s most notable gifts, often disclosed only in brief essays or through her database at Yield Giving, tend to focus on equity, education, and economic security.

Her support for Funding U offers a rare public glimpse into Scott’s investments.

Last year, she announced that she would put money into “mission-aligned ventures” led by “under-capitalised groups” developing “for-profit solutions” to the same challenges her philanthropy seeks to address.

Few of those investments have been publicly confirmed.

“She is looking for innovative ways to expand opportunity for people who don’t have it,” said Marybeth Gasman, who directs the Center for Minority Serving Institutions at Rutgers University and studies Scott’s giving.

“As someone who attended college on a scholarship and grew up in a very low-income family, I find it profoundly meaningful”.

In many respects, Scott once resembled the very students Funding U serves.

Tarkenton remembered her as “hard-working, with very strong grades,” and “deeply focused”.

The company uses details like academic records and internship experience to feed an algorithm that predicts whether a candidate is likely to complete college, find a job, and earn enough to repay a loan.

Tarkenton argues that this formula is fairer and more accurate than traditional criteria tied to credit history or parental guarantees.

According to Tarkenton, Scott provides most of the “junior debt” Funding U uses to reduce risk for larger investors such as Goldman Sachs.

She is part of a small group of philanthropists who supply thirty cents for every dollar the company lends.

These investors accept lower interest and slower repayment in order to help the model function.

The remaining seventy percent comes from banks that support Funding U in order to comply with federal anti-discrimination rules requiring financial institutions to offer loans that benefit local communities.

“I wanted capital from people who joined because they cared about the individual student,” Tarkenton said.

“And I also wanted to bring a market-driven solution to the table, knowing philanthropy alone could not be scaled”.

Tarkenton stresses that her company is not a charity; it is a business seeking profit.

Scott will eventually be repaid — just as she once repaid the informal loan Tarkenton secured for her at Princeton.

But the model reflects something Tarkenton believes more philanthropists should embrace: investing with the goal of public benefit rather than pure donation.

“I think philanthropists can be braver, and do more with their money,” she said.

“I want to nudge them in a more aligned direction”.

Her decision to create Funding U grew out of her work at an adult-literacy nonprofit in Atlanta, where she noticed persistent gaps in degree completion along socioeconomic lines.

The problem, she concluded, was too large for philanthropy alone — but too small for most private-sector lenders to bother addressing.

Since her divorce from Bezos, Scott has donated more than nineteen billion dollars to over two thousand organisations.

Unlike many major donors, she does not put her name on buildings or impose conditions on how recipients must use the funds.

Her investment in Funding U marks a new dimension in her approach — not a gift, but an investment that returns capital, albeit less profitably than the market might offer, while advancing a social objective.

It is an example of what is commonly called impact investing, a field that has grown rapidly among wealthy individuals who aim to do good while maintaining and recycling their financial resources.