Self-Made Tax Accountant Expands Access to Pre-Professional Education Through Planned Gift

To understand why Larry Furman (M.S. ’75) created an endowed scholarship for graduate students at the University of Houston, you have to go back to the early 1970s, long before he built a successful career in tax accounting.

Furman was a young man working nights in the data processing department at Sakowitz, the historic Houston department store. Although he had ambitions for his future, he knew he needed a higher degree to give him a strong start in accounting, but Furman didn’t have the resources to take the next step.

One day, a path forward was revealed to him unexpectedly. His coworker, Gene Whittenberg, then a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Houston, told him about a modest fellowship for UH students, offered through Peat Marwick Mitchell (now KPMG). This fellowship, Furman realized, was exactly the kind of opportunity he had been waiting for. He applied to UH’s Master of Science in Accountancy program and was awarded the fellowship.

As part of this fellowship, Furman worked as a teaching assistant to William Hoffman, the head of the department and the professor who would become his most influential mentor. Professor Hoffman taught tax law through case studies, using real-world scenarios to train students to think critically and rigorously.

“Dr. Hoffman made sure we understood not just the printed words of the tax code but how they worked and how people reacted to them,” Furman recalls.

This training served him well after he graduated. “When I started working, I gained a very fast reputation for being competent.”

Career opportunities came not only in Texas but from firms in New York City and Connecticut, which showed Furman that a UH degree carried serious weight far beyond Houston. During a turbulent economic period in Texas in the 1980s, he accepted a job offer from Los Angeles and moved there.

The fortuitous opportunity that allowed him to return to his school and pursue the career he built from this strong academic background inspired Furman to give back. While many alumni focus their support on the exact program that shaped their careers, Furman deliberately chose to widen the scope of his scholarship to include multiple professional fields. By doing so, he hoped to provide the same kind of launchpad he had received, an opportunity to develop skills, gain experience and build a career that could take them wherever ambition and talent might lead.

“We can’t all be accountants or lawyers or doctors,” he explains.

“The purpose of the scholarship is to help students who are aiming for a degree that will allow them to immediately be employed. I’m not interested in micromanaging students. I’m interested in supporting ambition.”

His endowment is intentionally designed to be substantial, something that can help a student not just get started but finish strong.

“This scholarship is not for people who are perfect scholastically or those with family money,” he said. “It’s for ambitious young people of limited means at a university that pays them some attention. And in Houston, you can get that.”

Furman’s intentions with his gift align with one of the Can’t Stop Houston: The Centennial Campaign’s most crucial goals: provide strong and reliable support to students to jumpstart their professional careers. For Furman, choosing a planned gift to do this felt both practical and principled.

“Those of us who do not come from money face many economic pressures when we’re young. If you only use your current funds to make gifts, they’re going to be very limited. But at the end of your life, you have accumulations such as insurance proceeds and assets that you don’t need anymore. That’s the time to be generous.”

UH’s mission of providing access to ambitious students from all backgrounds ultimately drew him back as a donor.

“UH makes education accessible,” he says. “That’s why I wanted to fund the scholarship there. Also, I believe scholarships are an investment. If we don’t invest in our children, we will decline.”

With his planned gift, Furman hopes to help future Cougars find what he found at UH: a degree that unlocks opportunity, a path to independence and the confidence to realize their professional dreams.

“Persevere,” he advises future scholarship recipients. “You will always be glad you graduated with a professional degree you can use to build a career.”