Nearly half of the trust's money comes from its controlling interest in Hershey's eponymous chocolate company.
[11][12] In 1918, following Catherine's death three years prior, Milton put most of his fortune—including his share of his company's stock—into a trust for the school, valued at $60 million altogether.
Following a 1968 decision upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ordered the racial desegregation of Girard College, Milton Hershey School admitted its first non-white student.
[21][22][23] School official James E. Bobb, however, stated that the decision to admit racial minorities was unrelated to the ruling.
[24] In 1976, the school expanded its definition of orphanhood to include "social orphans", those with single or divorced parents.
[25] In November of that year, the school successfully petitioned the Dauphin County Court on allowing girls based on their charter.
[29] Cyndi Jacobsen wrote in 1989 in The Sentinel that "students chafe under the rules, the lack of privacy and individuality, and the anachronistic dairy barns ... [b]ut graduates tend to look back at their experience as a survival test".
She said that house parents varied widely in their treatment, with some "rigid and authoritarian" and others "warm and affirming.
[33] While the school initially defended its decision, citing safety concerns, an anti-discrimination lawsuit filed by the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania led to a settlement of $700,000 for the boy's family and a reversal of the policy.
[34][35] In 2013, 14-year-old student Abbie Bartels committed suicide shortly after being denied attendance at the school's eighth-grade graduation.
[41] In 2019, Milton Hershey School's elementary innovation lab instructor received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.
Alumni and residents criticized the idea; some accused the trust of long-term financial wrongdoing and incompetence, with 1980 graduate Ric Fouad calling it "the charitable-trust Enron".
[48] In 2020, Milton Hershey School invested $350 million to fund the development of up to six cost-free early childhood resource centers in Pennsylvania.
Named Catherine Hershey Schools for Early Learning, the first center opened in 2023, and they serve children from birth to age five from economically disadvantaged and at-risk backgrounds.
[49][50][51] In 2017, Milton Hershey School created a partnership with Penn State University, its seventh such partnership to offer graduates of Milton Hershey School support at the college level as first-generation college students.
[54] While in 2000 only about one tenth of students had a deceased parent,[25] nearly 90 percent of the school's come from single-parent homes as of 2020, with an average income of $22,000.
[31] The Compass Project enables Milton Hershey School students to develop leadership skills and build character.