<p>OP -"But tuition (high as it is) only covers a fraction of total costs.(op)"</p>
<p>Bartleby reply:
I don't think that's true if you're paying full tuition at a private college (~$45-50k).</p>
<p>From the Carleton College website:
Full tuition covers less than half of what it really costs to attend Carleton.</p>
<p>Swarthmore website: Tuition and fees cover only about 40% of the real cost of attending Swarthmore. Every student, today as in the past, receives a "hidden scholarship" from gifts and endowment income. </p>
<p>Pomona website: Each year, we can spend only part of the interest earned on the endowment - approximately five percent in total. This covers close to 30 percent of Pomona's annual operating costs. Tuition and room and board income does not cover the remaining costs to operate the College.</p>
<p>I make donations to my alma mater and to my daughter's college - pretty much token amounts, but every bit helps. In five years when tuition payment hell is over for me, I will probably increase the amounts to at least try to pay back the scholarships my daughter and I each received.</p>
<p>I have been donating to my alma mater for the past 15 years, primarily because I hoped it would increase my children's chances of getting in if they applied for admission. The amount was just enough to get me listed in the annual donor bulletin. I truly believe my almost-Ivy school does not need my paltry amount as much as I do.</p>
<p>D is not going to my alma mater and S won't be applying there either so I'm stopping these donations, and will plan to donate to D's college after she graduates.</p>
<p>I should add to my post above that I still plan to donate $50 annually to my alma mater's library. Since my parents paid for nearly all of my UG education, I want honor them with a library donation and book plate in their name. I know its a small token but neither of them graduated college and scrimped and saved so that I could graduate with very little debt. I know they get a kick of knowing that they are acknowledged on the bookshelves.</p>
<p>"Swarthmore website: Tuition and fees cover only about 40% of the real cost of attending Swarthmore. Every student, today as in the past, receives a "hidden scholarship" from gifts and endowment income.</p>
<p>Pomona website: Each year, we can spend only part of the interest earned on the endowment - approximately five percent in total. This covers close to 30 percent of Pomona's annual operating costs. Tuition and room and board income does not cover the remaining costs to operate the College."</p>
<p>Yup. So your donation ends up subsidizing the millionaires' kids, even when they'd be perfectly happy to pay more.</p>
<p>I give a modest amount to my undergraduate alma mater. I have also given some time, as an alumni interviewer, etc. I cannot imagine that I would have stopped doing that if I had a child who had applied and been rejected. The way I look at it, I owe my alma mater for what it did for me. In fact, I started getting more involved in alumni affairs when my "nest" emptied out. I saw how many folks were doing it in the hope that it would help grease the wheels for admission for their own kids. I firgured my alma mater could use a little help from someone without an ax to grind. </p>
<p>My alma mater is one of several colleges--there may be others I don't know about--which provide some free college counseling to the children of alumni. It does this because it has learned the hard way that alums often get upset when their kids don't get in. So, they help with the college search, hoping that if S or D ends up at a less selective college or another college that is simply a better "fit" , their alumni parents are more likely to keep giving. I used that service, even though my offspring simply weren't interested in my alma mater. </p>
<p>I do not give to my law school. I don't think it needs the money and I don't feel much of an emotional connection with it. </p>
<p>I see no reason to give to a child's college. That's the job of the student/graduate. Tuition, room and board is enough of a contribution from a parent, IMO. </p>
<p>However, my will does provide that if my kids predecease me--which would mean they died young--I'll leave small amounts of money for specific organizations they benefited from. My alma mater will receive more.</p>
<p>I make donations to 15+ charitable organizations each year, none of which are my undergrad alma mater, a large public u. I have a finite amount of $$ to give, and I figure that not only is my alma mater the least needy, it already annually receives a portion of my income in the form of taxes.</p>
<p>I've made one or two small donations to my alma mater, but I'm not all that bonded with the school. I attended as an adult weekend college student, so I spent little time on the campus and never lived there.</p>
<p>I do make a small monthly donation to the college where I work, because I believe in its mission and quality.</p>
<p>We donate a modest annual amount to our undergrad and nothing to the professional school that my husband attended because they shut it down and transferred the endowment to the general university fund (still have hard feelings). However, we donate many thousands of dollars to our local Big Ten University, which neither of us attended, for the opportunity to purchase football and basketball tickets. I don't like it but that's the way it is and my husband grew up in this town and is a big fan.</p>
<p>I just got a solicitation to donate to the pre-school that my children attended. I declined that one saying I needed all available funds for my pre-school alum to go to college. The pre-school is heavily subsidized by the church we attend, which we donate to, so I didn't feel too bad.</p>