The world's wealthiest college drop-out is donating millions of dollars to help New York City students stay in high school.

Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp. and co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, gave $51.2 million to the city to help create 67 small new high schools for minority, low-income students.

The aim of the gift is to "take students in high schools and prepare them for college," Gates told a news conference at a Bronx high school Wednesday.

The grant is large, but is dwarfed by the school system's annual $12 billion budget.

Gates was joined by his former adversary Joel Klein, who is chancellor of the New York City Department of Education. Klein was head of the U.S. Justice Department 's antitrust division and launched the case to break up Microsoft, charging it was a monopoly.

"I'm glad to be working on the same team now," Gates joked.

Gates and his foundation, which has an endowment of about $24 billion, have already given $30 million to help create 32 small schools in the city by splitting up larger schools. Research has shown that students from smaller schools have higher graduation rates.

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