Alumni Giving: A New, Better Way to Compare?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Some, like USNWR, like to evaluate college support by reporting the % of alumni who donate to the school. Many object to this and claim that it makes no allowance for the strength of the gifts being made, ie, a gift of $10 is valued the same as a gift for $1 million.</p>

<p>A recent report by the Council on Aid to Education showed the amount of giving during fiscal year 2008 (ended 6/30/08) to individual colleges. Measured on a per capita basis, we see the strength of the monies that have been raised. </p>

<p>Below are the complete figures for the USNWR Top 50 national universities and the USNWR Top 25 LACs. Please be aware that the % of Alumni Giving numbers are not matched with the gifts, but are from the latest version of USNWR, and are provided as a comparison point with the per capita calculations. </p>

<p>Rank , Fiscal 2008 Alumni Giving Per Capita , % of Alumni Giving , National University</p>

<p>1 , $48,488 , 29% , Caltech
2 , $42,484 , 43% , Yale
3 , $39,685 , 36% , Stanford
4 , $33,786 , 41% , Harvard
5 , $30,797 , 60% , Princeton
6 , $30,519 , 37% , MIT
7 , $28,499 , 53% , Dartmouth
8 , $28,362 , 40% , Duke
9 , $25,162 , 38% , U Penn
10 , $22,747 , 33% , Johns Hopkins
11 , $22,621 , 51% , Notre Dame
12 , $21,854 , 36% , Columbia
13 , $21,563 , 40% , Brown
14 , $21,084 , 23% , Tufts
15 , $20,825 , 32% , U Chicago
16 , $20,678 , 34% , Cornell
17 , $16,764 , 33% , Brandeis
18 , $16,453 , 34% , Rice
19 , $13,078 , 36% , Emory
20 , $12,248 , 38% , USC
21 , $11,928 , 30% , Northwestern
22 , $11,740 , 14% , UCLA
23 , $11,734 , 33% , Lehigh
24 , $11,475 , 37% , Wash U
25 , $11,259 , 25% , Vanderbilt
26 , $11,163 , 24% , U Virginia
27 , $10,787 , 18% , U Rochester
28 , $10,674 , 32% , Wake Forest
29 , $10,392 , 23% , U North Carolina
30 , $9,758 , 13% , U Wisconsin
31 , $9,277 , 11% , NYU
32 , $9,085 , 22% , Carnegie Mellon
33 , $8,975 , 14% , Case Western
34 , $8,164 , 14% , UC Berkeley
35 , $8,124 , 18% , U Michigan
36 , $7,677 , 23% , Tulane
37 , $7,528 , 17% , U Washington
38 , $7,414 , 28% , Georgetown
39 , $7,297 , 21% , Boston Coll
40 , $6,248 , 31% , Georgia Tech
41 , $5,857 , 18% , Rensselaer
42 , $5,638 , 16% , U Texas
43 , $4,509 , 8% , UCSD
44 , $4,495 , 23% , W&M
45 , $4,214 , 19% , UC Santa Barbara
46 , $4,071 , 22% , Penn State
47 , $3,999 , 17% , U Florida
48 , $3,484 , 13% , UC Irvine
49 , $3,355 , 12% , UC Davis
50 , $3,310 , 14% , U Illinois</p>

<p>Rank , Fiscal 2008 Alumni Giving Per Capita , % of Alumni Giving , LAC</p>

<p>1 , $40,600 , 61% , Amherst
2 , $33,344 , 45% , Claremont McK
3 , $24,915 , 60% , Williams
4 , $24,724 , 55% , Bowdoin
5 , $24,493 , 54% , Davidson
6 , $24,161 , 48% , W&L
7 , $19,162 , 50% , Swarthmore
8 , $18,231 , 49% , Haverford
9 , $15,868 , 50% , Wellesley
10 , $15,247 , 58% , Middlebury
11 , $14,386 , 42% , Bryn Mawr
12 , $13,382 , 43% , Colgate
13 , $13,090 , 38% , Smith
14 , $12,695 , 43% , Hamilton
15 , $12,369 , 64% , Carleton
16 , $12,113 , 38% , Harvey Mudd
17 , $11,504 , 48% , Colby
18 , $11,429 , 35% , Vassar
19 , $11,386 , 47% , Pomona
20 , $10,575 , 51% , Wesleyan
21 , $9,425 , 42% , Macalester
22 , $8,714 , 43% , Bates
23 , $7,503 , 41% , Oberlin
24 , $7,164 , 34% , US Military Acad
25 , $6,703 , 23% , US Naval Acad
26 , $6,508 , 43% , Grinnell</p>

2

<p>Measuring the percentage of alumni giving is, for the most part, akin to measuring the solicitousness of a school's alumni association. It is very easy for an alum to part with $10 or $20, if only to be left alone. Many schools have fundraising campaigns which revolve around doing such tactics, for the sake of their USNWR rankings. These shenanigans do not demonstrate true school "loyalty" any more than dropping a dime in the Salvation Army coin bucket shows generosity and goodwill. In any event, "alumni loyalty" is too complicated a concept to be captured so conveniently by proxy with "percentage of alumni giving." </p>

<p>Alumni giving per capita, while not a perfect measure by any means, shows that alums are willing and able to put their money where their mouth is. Bottomline, what really matters to a school anyways? The total amount of money raised.</p>

3

<p>I'd much rather just see the percent of alum giving. I like to see that the school teachers and non profit workers also love their schools, not just the rich alum trying to get their kids in with money.</p>

4

<p>Hmom5,</p>

<p>Ironic you'd say that, because the school about which you love to brag (Dartmouth) produces the highest salaried graduates in the Ivy League (which is also another of your bragging points). Anecdotally speaking, I know a handful of Dartmouth grads and not one of them (or their friends) do "non-profit" work. In fact, they're probably incapable of doing or conceiving of doing such work.</p>

5

<p>Within the actual numbers themselves, a few colleges stood out to me as likely having received some big gifts from a few donors while some other schools had greater breadth than their per capita numbers might suggest:</p>

<p>Colleges where a few big donors could have moved the needle:<br>
1 , $48,488 , 29% , Caltech
14 , $21,084 , 23% , Tufts
22 , $11,740 , 14% , UCLA</p>

<p>Colleges with great breadth, but not especially high per capita
24 , $11,475 , 37% , Wash U
38 , $7,414 , 28% , Georgetown
40 , $6,248 , 31% , Georgia Tech</p>

<p>15 , $12,369 , 64% , Carleton
20 , $10,575 , 51% , Wesleyan</p>

6

<p>I went to Wharton and know many alum who work for non profits, so your world must be small, nyccard. Why the hostility against people you don't know?</p>

7

<p>The numbers are going to be skewed by capital campaigns.</p>

8

<p>Or we can just look at the real top fundraisers</p>

<p>TOP FUND-RAISING INSTITUTIONS, 2007-8</p>

<p>Percentage change in amount raised from 2006-7 to 2007-8 Percentage change in amount raised from 2002-3 to 2007-8
1. Stanford U. $785,042,846 -5.7% +61.5%
2. Harvard U. $650,625,000 +6.0% +17.1%
3. Columbia U. $495,106,753 +16.8% +75.9%
4. Yale U. $486,610,483 +24.4% +119.1%
5. U. of Pennsylvania $475,957,652 +21.3% +19.1%
6. U. of California at Los Angeles $456,654,332 +25.2% +42.9%
7. Johns Hopkins U. $448,964,324 +4.3% +40.5%
8. U. of Wisconsin at Madison $410,227,266 +26.1% +43.0%
9. Cornell U. $409,422,892 +0.6% +29.1%
10. U. of Southern California $409,183,101 -12.9% +33.7%
11. Indiana U. system $408,620,812 +46.7% +63.5%
12. New York U. $387,608,993 +34.8% +86.4%
13. Duke U. $385,672,922 +3.6% +29.9%
14. U. of California at San Francisco $366,068,018 +45.3% +62.3%
15. U. of Michigan system $333,445,185 +13.6% +81.3%
16. Massachusetts Institute of Technology $311,902,992 -5.2% +62.9%
17. U. of Minnesota system $307,609,387 +6.5% +25.6%
18. U. of Washington $302,770,825 +0.9% -2.7%
19. U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $292,389,028 +18.4% +78.7%
20. U. of California at Berkeley $285,346,548 +17.6% +49.6%
SOURCE: Council for Aid to Education</p>

9

<p>repeat post #10 from here:</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/649381-usnwr-rankings-ex-alumni-giving.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/649381-usnwr-rankings-ex-alumni-giving.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

10

<p>These kinds of comparisons would be more meaningful only if you broke down alumni giving by class, and showed class giving over a period of years---which of course no one's going to do because it's too much to chart. For many publics, alumni giving was never considered a major component of the school's finances until quite recently---the school, the alums, and the state just thought it was the state's job to support the school, not the alumni's. The top publics have been gradually making a transition away from that model, but depending on the school they may have tens or hundreds of thousands of older alums who have never bought into the new fiscal reality of public higher education, and who bring down both the % of alumni giving and the per capita average. Most private schools, by contrast, start pounding alums for contributions even before they're alums, i.e., before they graduate; and they've been doing this for generations. </p>

<p>I also agree with interesteddad: capital campaigns will deeply skew single-year numbers in favor of those schools that happen to have a major capital campaign underway during the year in question. That's enough "noise" to drown out any meaningful information in the data. This exercise is pretty much worthless.</p>

11

<p>I think it would be nice to see alumni giving per alumni giver as opposed to per capita.</p>

<p>And what is the per capita? Is it against the size of the student body? The size of the living alumni body? Undergraduate-only? Undergrad+grad? Does it count non-degree programs?</p>

12

<p>ilovebagels,
The per capita measurement above is based on the current student body which I readily concede is a flawed way to look at this. But the thinking was that this group would be the ones to most immediately benefit from larger gifts as the college can translate these gifts into increased services, increased financial aid, improved facilities, etc. </p>

<p>Alumni giving is a very difficult thing to measure and IMO is not a very accurate measurement of the strength of student/graduate sentiment towards an individual institution. Furthermore, I strongly believe that the state universities are undermined by its inclusion in any ranking system, including USNWR.</p>

13

<p>I don't think alumni giving per current undergrad student is any more a useful number than any other more standard measure. These gifts can go to so many places, including graduate schools or professional programs, the endowment, specific departments, specific current building projects undergoing fund raising, etc.</p>

<p>Alumni participation in giving back to the institution is at least some indication of the strength of the alumni network, connectedness of people once they leave the institution, and perhaps, satisfaction. Anything involving the dollar amounts is probably more reflective of current needs and perhaps wealth production of students once they leave as opposed to something more meaningful to someone searching for their choice for their undergraduate experience.</p>

<p>That being said, I find it interesting that there are really only a few schools that make major moves on this list-- many of the top percentage schools also fall somewhere in the top giving. The top 20-25, with the exception of 2-3 outliers all exceed the remainder of the list except for 2-3 outliers when it comes to percentage</p>

<p>I wonder, hawkette, how are the numbers for alumni gifts being obtained? Are they general gifts to the university and just all of those gifts are counted? Are they gifts specifically demarcated for the undergraduate programs? If it's for the university at large that we're getting these numbers, I hope you're adding graduate schools into your per capita assessment-- they are students on campuses too and sometimes benefit even more from monetary donations than undergraduates ever could, depending on the needs of the institution and nature of current spending priorities.</p>

14

<p>mm,
I don't believe that the data breaks down by which programs/students are to benefit from the gifts. My understanding is that it is total gifts, in fiscal 2008 (6/07-6/08), to the institution.</p>

<p>The per capita numbers that I used include the graduate students. I concur that the spending at many colleges occurs at a far higher rate and benefit to grad students than it does to undergrads. This difference is important in appreciating a university's priorities and how that translates through to the actual undergraduate academic experience that a student will have.</p>

15

<p>I am sorry, I don't know why this is arranged this way--it appears to be uneditable!!</p>

<p>
[quote]
I concur that the spending at many colleges occurs at a far higher rate and benefit to grad students than it does to undergrads. This difference is important in appreciating a university's priorities ...

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm not sure that was modestmelody's point--she said they SOMETIMES benefit more.</p>

<p>But more to the point, I'm not sure it's true that spending more on graduate students means a University's priorities are skewed toward them.</p>

<p>Universities with engineering schools spend more on their engineering students than they do on history students. Does that mean it cares more about engineering students? No, it means it simply costs more to provide an engineering education. At some schools, engineers also pay more tuition--just as grad students pay more tuition for their programs.</p>

16

<p>It is hard to compare apples to apples with the universities.
What is the breakdown among the schools at Harvard? The Law and Business Schools are fabulously supported per capita, undergrads less so, the School of Education more poorly supported still.</p>

17

<p>Where did the numbers for undergraduate and graduate students come from? If from the College Board, they do not include professional school students, which at schools like Chicago and Harvard can be substantial.
For example, the College Board site lists 4901 undergrads and 6623 graduate students at Chicago. The U of C's website lists 5027 undergrads and 9820 graduate and professional school students.
If the professional school students are left out of the headcount, the effect would be to pump up the contributions for schools with wealthy professional schools while simultaneously shorting their denominator (number of students).
I do appreciate trying to look at this issue in different ways.</p>

18

<p>Don't you think that a school could be great but left a bad taste in the alumnis mouth as they were leaving? I wouldn't trade my undergrad experience at UW Madison for anything but I would also never give a single dime to the institution that canceled my student email, deactivated my library card, refused to extend advising services and stopped permitting me to buy beer at the union all within a month of graduation. I don't think these obnoxious policies reflect a bad institution but they will prevent donations.</p>