Stevens Gift Funds New Santa Clara Medical School
A $175 million pledge from Mark and Mary Stevens will establish a medical school developed by Sutter Health and Santa Clara University.
Updated on Nov. 4, 2026 in Healthcare
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Mark and Mary Stevens pledged $175 million to establish the Mark & Mary Stevens School of Medicine in Santa Clara. The school will be developed through a partnership between Sutter Health and Santa Clara University.
Why it matters
The school is the first new medical school in the San Francisco Bay Area in more than 100 years, adding training capacity in the region. The gift is the largest ever received by both Santa Clara University and Sutter Health.
The $175 million donation is the largest gift ever received by both Santa Clara University and Sutter Health. Mark Stevens also announced a $200 million donation to the University of Southern California ten days before this gift.
The players
Mark Stevens
Mark Stevens is a board member of Nvidia Corp. and has a net worth of $13.9 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Sutter Health
Sutter Health is a nonprofit healthcare system based in Northern California that is partnering with Santa Clara University on the medical school.
Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara that will co-develop the medical school with Sutter Health.
The details
The facility will span about 82,000 square feet and include classrooms, simulation facilities and an anatomy laboratory. Once open, the school is expected to enroll about 120 students per class and place a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence in healthcare delivery.
Timeline
Nov. 4, 2026: Sutter Health and Santa Clara University announce the $175 million medical school pledge.
Ten days before the medical school gift: Mark Stevens announces a $200 million donation to the University of Southern California.
Market Landscape
The gift extends a pattern of large Stevens-family donations to Santa Clara University, previously nearly $40 million for athletics facilities. It moves that giving into academic medicine, a far larger commitment than the earlier athletics gifts.
The school's planned enrollment of about 120 students per class could expand the pool of local medical training once it opens. Opening depends on completing a multiyear accreditation process, so students and patients will not see changes soon.
The takeaway
Large private gifts are increasingly funding the physical and educational infrastructure of healthcare, and this pledge shows how a health system and a university can share that work. Local readers should watch for accreditation milestones before expecting the school to affect training or care in the region.
Further reading
For more on the hospital and medical-education landscape, explore Healthcare coverage.
Source note: This article includes information reported by The Times of India.
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