Lumina was created in August 2000 with an initial endowment of $770 million in cash and stock. From the beginning, Lumina has been committed to working toward a better-educated country. We focus on learners who are Black, Hispanic, Latino, and Native American, the first in their families to go to college, or are from low-income families. Many attend community colleges, public universities, historically Black colleges, Hispanic-serving institutions, and tribal colleges.
We chose this path after creating a charitable endowment using proceeds of the sale of most operating assets of Indianapolis-based USA Group, then the nation’s largest private, nonprofit guarantor and administrator of college loans. The sale’s proceeds went to USA Group’s foundation, which converted to become Lumina, an independent private foundation, with $1.4 billion in assets today.
Loan company Sallie Mae purchased the original USA Group assets. Lumina was never in business with Sallie Mae and never issued loans. We have no ties whatsoever to the student loan industry. The sale of assets to Sallie Mae included receiving company stock. When we charted our course as a social-change organization, we quickly sold the Sallie Mae stock, resulting in a sudden, nearly 5 percent decline in the company’s market capitalization.