The Wealth Advisor
By Elizabeth Rembert
March 9th, 2026
Campbell’s Soup Heirs, Colleges Fight Over $65 Million Endowment
An unusual court fight that’s been playing out in Pennsylvania for over a year has pitted more than a dozen schools against the family of Dorrance “Dodo” Hamilton, the late Campbell’s Soup heiress who provided more than half of the UArts endowment. Her heirs are now seeking to reclaim a portion of the $65 million endowment that was used to fund the University of the Arts.
The case offers a glimpse into the types of conflicts that are likely to grow increasingly common as shuttered schools leave behind endowments. Dozens of small colleges have already closed in recent years due to rising expenses and falling enrollment, with more expected as a decline in birth rates thins the ranks of incoming freshmen.
Over 400 private colleges in the US will likely fold or merge with another institution in the next decade, according to the consulting firm Huron, potentially putting about $23 billion of endowment funds in limbo. Even broke colleges can leave behind sizeable endowments because they typically can’t be tapped for day-to-day expenses like payrolls. Usually, the money comes with strings attached to guarantee that it’s used only as the donor intended. Those intentions must be honored after a college shuts down.
Dodo Hamilton, whose grandfather invented the condensing process for soup and was the president of the Campbell Soup Co. during the early 20th century, was a prominent local philanthropist.
After UArts collapsed in 2024, the school’s lawyers said the other colleges where the students landed should each get a share of the endowment. But Hamilton’s children asked a judge to block the plan, saying it was at odds with her intentions. They took particular issue with the money going to state-funded schools, saying Hamilton supported UArts because it was a private, unique institution focused exclusively on visual and performing arts.
Instead, they want the $37 million she donated be returned to the Hamilton Family Charitable Trust. In court documents, the family’s lawyers said sending the money elsewhere would “do violence to and ignore Mrs. Hamilton’s charitable intention and her donative intent.”
The trust is facing an “uphill fight,” said Tom Donovan, who oversaw the endowment distribution process for closed colleges a handful of times when he worked in the New Hampshire Attorney General office. “The law tends to be not favorable to those donors if they think things are going sideways and they want their money back,” he said.
