Someone Donated $1M to Fund New York Times Subscriptions for Students

An anonymous donor contributed $1 million to a pool that will fund free access to NYTimes.com for students across the U.S., the New York Times said in a press release.

The $1 million donation was one of more than 15,000 collected by NYT since it launched its "Sponsor a Subscription" program on Feb. 3. Besides news subscriptions, NYT plans to offer sponsored public schools a range of educational programs such as interactive "webinars" with journalists. So far, 1.3 million students have benefited from the program.

“The genesis of the ‘sponsor a subscription’ program came directly from readers who approached us with the desire to help support independent journalism and promote news literacy after the U.S. elections," Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., publisher of NYT, said.