Philadelphia’s St. Joseph’s Prep receives $74M from alumnus Nick Howley for expansion, student access

St. Joseph’s Prep alumnus Nick Howley, founder of TransDigm, a Cleveland-based aerospace manufacturing company, has donated $74 million to the Philadelphia school, marking the largest gift ever to a U.S. Catholic high school. The gift will fund a full campus expansion, including athletic fields, an outdoor classroom, amphitheater, and parking, while scaling the Howley Scholars Program to 80 full-tuition students across four grades. The award also supports long-term infrastructure and access goals, enabling enrollment growth and expanded programming for students from underserved communities. The gift builds on Howley’s earlier $5 million gift and advances a decades-long plan to modernize the school’s 160-year-old urban campus.