The founding father of The Hershey Chocolate Firm, Milton Hershey, based a boarding college for orphaned boys.
Rumors circulating on-line in October 2025 purported that Milton Hershey, a rich businessman and famous philanthropist greatest identified for founding The Hershey Chocolate Firm within the late nineteenth century, as soon as created a boarding college for orphaned boys.
Tales about Hershey’s generosity have circulated on-line for years, together with comparable claims about his efforts to open a non-public college. He was additionally well-known for founding Hershey, Pennsylvania, an organization city surrounding the Hershey manufacturing unit, constructed primarily for Hershey staff.
Customers on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram shared the purported story of Hershey’s kindness, together with an alleged picture of the person with college students that mentioned, “He constructed a chocolate empire. Then he gave all of it away to youngsters who had nothing.”
Milton Hershey pic.twitter.com/4rPXHyfvEa
— JacqT (@jptrib1) October 28, 2025
It’s true that Milton Hershey based a boarding college for orphaned boys.
The college was formally based on Nov. 15, 1909, as Hershey Industrial Faculty (now Milton Hershey Faculty), in accordance with a Deed of Trust that was offered to Snopes by the college. An article from the Nov. 9, 1923, version of The New York Times reported the belief’s worth as $60 million.
A spokesperson for the college informed Snopes in an e mail, “Milton Hershey Faculty started as a dream and imaginative and prescient shared by chocolate magnate Milton S. Hershey and his spouse, Catherine (Kitty). The Hersheys cherished youngsters however have been unable to have their very own. As an alternative, they determined to make use of their wealth to create a house and faculty for orphaned boys.”
In 2022, ProPublica reported that “to make sure that the college will exist ‘in perpetuity,’ the deed says the board can spend solely the revenue earned by the endowment, not the endowment itself. So whereas the college’s whole belongings are price $17.4 billion, $16 billion of that — Hershey Co. inventory, actual property holdings and different investments — can’t be spent, in accordance with the deed.”
Based on the college’s spokesperson, the small print reported by ProPublica have been correct and the belongings listed have been appropriate on the time of publication. The college’s website additionally listed the belief as its supply of funding.
The main points of the deed have been reported as early as 1923, when The New York Times wrote that “no surplus cash is stored idle awaiting potential future wants of the college, the college’s necessities are met as they happen, from web earnings, and if there’s out there cash left it’s put again into the enterprise, which the college owns, thus rising the colleges belongings.”
A historical past of admissions on the college
The Lancaster New Era, a newspaper in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, reported on the event of the college on July 9, 1910, calling it “a becoming climax to innumerable acts of liberal generosity” from Hershey. The paper said:
Along with his spouse as joint donor he positioned on report within the the Dauphin county Recorder’s workplace at this time a deed of belief to the Hershey Belief Firm of a number of of his alternative farms in Derry township, Dauphin county, the revenue and leases from that are to be turned over by the trustees to a board of managers who shall set up, equip and keep an industrial college for poor, white orphan boys.
A Nov. 10, 1923, article in The New York Times about Hershey’s modesty in publicizing his monetary assist of the college additional addressed the group’s admittance necessities, writing Milton “positioned the age restrict for admission at from 4 to six years” and “all candidates have to be bodily and mentally match, white, and American born.”
Requested for touch upon the college’s racist admissions historical past, a spokesperson directed Snopes to a web page on its website addressing the group’s evolution relating to its dedication to range.
The web page said, “The Deed of Belief remained unchanged till Dec. 24, 1970, when all references to race have been eradicated and the age was elevated to 16. The primary college students of shade have been enrolled in August of 1968.”
Additional, a spokesperson informed Snopes in an e mail that whereas the college originated as a college for orphaned boys, “approval was given for the Deed of Belief to be restated to confess ladies and youngsters whose dad and mom have been residing” on Nov. 15, 1976.
“The plan was to enroll ladies within the decrease grades and step by step improve the quantity. Nevertheless, the adjustment of the ladies to the Faculty and the power of the workers to fulfill the wants of feminine college students have been above expectations and the plan accelerated,” they wrote to Snopes. “The primary elementary ladies have been admitted on March 14, 1977, and by July 1977, the primary ladies have been enrolled within the Intermediate Division and by July of the next yr, a Senior Division residence was opened with the enrollment of feminine college students.”
As of 2025, Milton Hershey Faculty advertised itself as “a top-tier personal college for qualifying college students in pre-Ok by way of twelfth grade,” with greater than 2,100 college students, “providing life-changing alternatives and experiences that different faculties merely can not. Primarily based on the Deed of Belief left by Milton and Catherine Hershey, the college covers all prices for all college students.”
“Qualifying,” in accordance with the college’s FAQ page, included the next:
Come from a low-income household
Be age 4 to fifteen on the time of enrollment
Have the power to study
Be free of great behavioral issues prone to disrupt the classroom or scholar residence life at MHS
Total, have the power to take part in and profit from the MHS program
