University Trustee John Washington Rogers Jr. (Lab ’76) has donated $10.5 million to support a scholarship fund for students attending the University-affiliated Laboratory Schools and to establish a program for lower-income students in the College pursuing careers in finance. 

Four million dollars of the donation will be allocated to the John W. Rogers and Victoria Marie Rogers Scholarship Fund, a program that supports scholarship opportunities at the Laboratory Schools. 

Another $4.5 million will be used to establish and support the Ariel Investments Internship Program in Finance, a nascent program that will motivate College students from low-income and racial and ethnic minorities to pursue careers in finance. The donation will provide minority students more opportunities for paid internships at investment offices.  

Rogers’s donation will be used to further promote career advising programs, professional workshops, and networking and internship opportunities for College students. The remaining $2 million is for “unrestricted support.” 

“The Laboratory Schools and the University of Chicago teach students how to think while respecting different points of view and different experiences…. It’s part of what makes them such great places,” Rogers said in a press release last month. 

An alumnus of the Laboratory School, Rogers now serves as the chairman, CEO, and founder of the mutual fund firm Ariel Investments, LLC. Rogers has been a board member of the Laboratory Schools for over two decades and was presented with the Laboratory Schools’ Distinguished Alumni Award in 1994. In 2009, Rogers was appointed as the Laboratory Schools’ chair by University President Robert J. Zimmer.