Dr. Dre Donates $10 Million Toward a New $200 Million Compton High School
Although he lost $200 million in a deal with Apple for his Beats By Dre product line, Dr. Dre was able to contribute some of the money he did gain from the deal to help break ground on a new, $200-million campus for Compton High School.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Dr. Dre, who was then known as Andre Young when he attended high school while living in Compton, California, was at the groundbreaking on Saturday. He had gracefully donated $10 million for the school’s new performing arts center, which will be able to seat more than 900 people. The facility will be named the “Andre ‘Dr. Dre’ Young Performing Arts Center.”
Dr. Dre spoke at the groundbreaking ceremony. “I was an artistic kid in school with no outlet for it. I knew I had something special to offer to the world, but with nothing to support my gift, schools left me feeling unseen.”
Dr. Dre did go to nearby Centennial High School before transferring to Fremont High in South L.A. but he eventually dropped out of school.
“I’ve always wondered how much further ahead I might have been had the resources I needed in school were available,” he said. “If I had learned more about the business industry, I would have saved myself [an] extreme amount of time, money and most importantly, [made] a lot of friendships.”
The new campus for the 126-year-old school will have a new academic building that will be able to fit up to 1,800 students, with the possibility of an additional 450 more. There will also be a new gym, an aquatics center, a football stadium, and a track field. The rest of the project is funded through the district’s bond measure passed in 2015.
The school’s principal, Rigoberto Roman stated, “This new campus that will be erected, it will be erected upon deep roots and outstanding accomplishments that have been established over decades. Let us embrace this change for the sake of our future and our children’s future. This is a type of change to celebrate.”
The opening of the newly built campus is scheduled for the beginning of 2025.
