"This Hewlett gift will be transformational," UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said. "We are moving toward a model that has been developed successfully at private universities."

"Our goal is to take a great state institution and help it maintain its greatness," Hewlett Foundation President Paul Brest said. "It's a different model for a public university, one that has worked very well for the privates."

"Private universities figured out long before we did the importance of building up an endowment," Birgeneau said. "If you look at income from Stanford's endowment, their payout is $200 million more than what we get from the state."