Tony Hulman’s family valued education and giving back to the community. After graduating from Yale University in 1924, Hulman returned to his hometown, Terre Haute, Indiana, and joined the family business, Hulman & Company.

With his experience of playing on the Yale University football team, he became the football coach for Rose Polytechnic’s freshman football team and assisted with the varsity team.

Rose Polytechnic was founded by Chauncey Rose in 1874. After settling in Terre Haute, Rose became involved with a distillery, a mill and a general store. Over time, he became a significant landowner in Terre Haute and recognized that the future of the town was dependent upon transportation. As one of the founders of the Richmond and Terre Haute Railroad, Rose became frustrated by the lack of trained engineers willing to come to the area and work on the railroad.

His solution was to start a school to train engineers. He assembled a group of nine friends and business associates to establish the Terre Haute School of Industrial Science. While he gave 10 acres of land and $186,000 in securities to the school, he would not see the school come to fruition. The school initially opened in 1882, five years after his death. To honor his contributions to the school, it was renamed Rose Polytechnic Institute.

Rose Polytechnic quickly outgrew their original facilities and purchased 123 acres from Tony’s father and uncle in 1914 who returned the purchase price to the school in 1917. His father served briefly on the board of managers. Tony Hulman was elected to the Board of Managers of Rose Polytechnic. In 1965, the Hulman Foundation provided a gift of $250,000 to Rose Polytechnic. The contributions of the Hulman family, either directly or through the Hulman Foundation, were honored by the school in 1966 when the student union was named the Hulman Memorial Student Union.

The generosity of Tony Hulman continued in 1970 when the assets of the Hulman Foundation were given to Rose Polytechnic. The Hulman Foundation was begun in the 1930s and at the time of the donation, it had a value of multi-million dollars. With this donation, the school’s name was changed to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.

Terre Haute has a second university, Indiana State University, which was founded in 1865 by the State of Indiana to train teachers with $50,000 in seed money. The citizens of Terre Haute purchased property for the school and the State provided an additional $50,000 to construct its first building. In April 1888, a fire destroyed the building but it was quickly rebuilt.

In 1945, Tony Hulman donated 47 acres for an athletic field. When Indiana State needed a new athletic center, Tony Hulman provided a $2.5 million challenge grant. At an original cost of $10 million, the 9,000 seat multi-purpose Hulman Center opened in December 1973.  It was renovated between 2018 and 2020 at a cost of $50 million. The Hulman-George family, Tony’s grandchildren, donated a $2 million scoreboard during the renovation.