The family who led the charge to build Tulane’s Yulman Stadium has contributed a $5 million matching-challenge gift to increase scholarship opportunities.

Board of Tulane member Richard Yulman and his daughter and son-in-law, Katy (NC ’05) and Greg Williamson, are sponsoring the Next Wave Scholarship Challenge, which will match new endowed scholarship donations of $100,000 to $500,000. This initiative seeks to increase the overall endowment dedicated to scholarship support.

Yulman, the retired co-chairman and owner of mattress manufacturing giant Serta International, serves as a campaign co-chair of Only the Audacious, The campaign for an ever bolder Tulane, the most ambitious and comprehensive fundraising effort in Tulane’s history. Katy Williamson is a co-chair of the National Campaign Council for the Tri-State area.

“No hardworking, high-achieving high school student should have to cross Tulane off their list because of the cost or the fear of lifelong loans — that would be a shame,” Yulman said. “We want talented students to be able to come to Tulane regardless of their financial backgrounds, and they ought to be able to make career choices unencumbered by debt.”

Yulman became convinced of the need to increase scholarship availability after accompanying a Tulane admissions counselor to a Miami high school, pre-pandemic, and talking face-to-face with capable students eager to apply but lacking the financial means.

“My dad told me how much that high school visit touched him personally and inspired him to want to do something significant to make a Tulane education more accessible,” said Katy Yulman-Williamson.

“Endowed scholarships allow extraordinary students to attend Tulane who otherwise could not afford to and to graduate without overwhelming student loans, so that they can pursue their dreams without the constraint of having to pay off a huge debt,” Tulane Provost Robin Forman said. “This makes a scholarship a gift not only for our students, but also for every community our graduates enter where they can make the sort of contributions that they are meant to make.”

Through the Yulman family’s philanthropy and leadership, Yulman Stadium was born in 2014, serving not only as Tulane’s first on-campus football stadium in almost 40 years, but also as a prominent symbol of the university’s post-Katrina renaissance.

Katy and Greg Williamson, a co-founder of UpperWest Music Group and a real-estate broker in New York, married in 2012 and have two children. The Williamsons are members of Tulane’s President’s Council.