KU Giving Magazine
Giving goals: Couple’s charitable estate planning taps into new tools to fund scholarships for students in need
March 17, 2025
Murray and Julie Levin attended KU School of Law together in the mid-1970s, and while law school lasted three years, what they learned while they were students has had benefits for a lifetime.
The opportunities that opened up for the Levins from their education motivated them to give back to the university by using planned giving to establish a scholarship fund for undergraduate students with financial need.
“Our decision to create an endowed scholarship fund was in part because we wanted to give back to KU after benefiting from our experience as students,” said Julie. “It was also in part out of concern for the circumstances of so many students who are struggling to finance their educations, which is so much more difficult today than when we were students.”
When the Levins retired in 2014, they established a scholarship fund with a charitable remainder unitrust (CRUT); in 2024, they utilized two charitable gift annuities (CGAs) to provide additional funds for scholarships. The CGAs supplement their retirement income with payments during their lifetimes, with the remainder to be used for their endowed scholarship fund.
“We funded the CRUT with donations of appreciated corporate stock and have since added to it,” Murray said. “We also have provisions in our estate plan that will add to our endowed scholarship fund after our deaths.”
Murray read about the Legacy IRA legislation (which enables IRA owners to make a limited one-time qualified charitable distribution to fund a CGA or a charitable trust) shortly after it was enacted in 2023. The Levins worked with KU Endowment to create these additional gifts that met their financial goals and also helped students.
Whether they made a qualified charitable distribution from their IRAs to fund a new charitable trust or set up a charitable gift annuity, they could designate that the remainder interest after their deaths would further their endowed scholarship fund.
“At our age we are both taking required minimum distributions from our IRA accounts,” Julie said. “By using this Legacy IRA opportunity, we were able to substantially reduce our taxable income in 2024, supplement our retirement income with annuity premiums during our lives in comparable amounts to the income that our traditional IRAs are now generating, and further our goal of providing scholarships for needy students.”
"Our decision to create an endowed scholarship fund was in part because we wanted to give back to KU after benefiting from our experience as students."
The Levins have one daughter and one granddaughter and consider themselves very fortunate to be able to support their future well-being and also provide scholarship support for others.
The couple has a history of working together on their goals. They met at the University of Wisconsin in 1969 and were married in 1970, and they were among the first married students to attend KU Law together.
“We have fond memories of studying together, sharing textbooks, learning an enormous amount of useful knowledge and developing analytical and critical-thinking skills,” said Julie. “It was the most challenging educational experience for both of us.”
This foundation enabled Julie to have a long and extraordinary career as an attorney for Legal Aid of Western Missouri, where she served as the managing attorney for its largest office in Kansas City for many years. She handled landmark federal court cases, received three national law awards, and she argued a case in the U.S. Supreme Court when she was only 35. After practicing with a law firm for a few years, Murray returned to a career in education (prior to law school he had worked as a teacher for the Head Start program) and spent the remainder of his career on the faculty of the KU School of Business.
The highlight of Murray’s teaching career at KU was his interaction with many smart, creative students. In addition to teaching in typically sized classrooms, he conducted classes for many years with hundreds of students in the largest lecture halls on campus. A team of law school students worked as his teaching assistants, many of whom had been his former students.
Regardless of the size of the classroom, Murray made a serious effort to connect with his students; he still hears from former KU students thanking him for his contribution to their education. The care he showed during his teacher career is now a legacy in his retirement, as the Levins’ scholarship fund will continue that support.
“The university gave us so much, and we’re grateful for our education,” Murray said. “We want to help other students have the same experience.”
KU Endowment is the independent, nonprofit organization serving as the official fundraising and fund-management foundation for KU. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment is the first foundation of its kind at a U.S. public university.
Posted on
March 17, 2025
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