Is it weird to donate to college while receiving aid at the same time?

My child’s at a need-blind college and is receiving aid. Is it weird if we donate to the college’s endowment as well while he’s still enrolled? I don’t want to jeopardize future aid (he’s only a sophomore) but that said he/we really like the school and want it to succeed and offer this to other families too. But of course, it’s like paying the college with its own money. Thoughts?

Since your child is receiving FA, I’m assuming that your donation isn’t a large figure. Typically, colleges have different fundraisers. My son’s college is also need blind and we get FA, as well. The college has “Parents Fund” to which parents can donate their money to. It’s an annual giving tradition. Although we receive FA from the college, I’ve donated and will continue to donate to the Parents Fund each year. I don’t worry about being penalized by the FA office for making donations. All colleges want their alumni to donate until their grave and beyond (why legacy system was installed in the first place), and penalizing for a good habit isn’t their interest.

We donated when our Ds were in school receiving merit aid. I looked at it as a token thank you.

The average donations are small. Not to worry. It’s not a major factor in getting FA and I don’t think you itemize any of that on FA forms.

In the development world, many corporate and foundation grants look at how many alums, students, or affiliated folks give. So even a $25 gift has it’s purpose.

I earmark mine for FA.

Donating even a small amount to the school, whether or not your child is on FA help it beyond the dollars you’re making available to them. One metric important to rating entities like USNews but also grant funders who might make a substantial award to the school, is the giving percentage among the school community. Grant makers want to see engagement in the school community and giving percentage is one of the statistics they look at. In other words, your $20 might help the college build a new science complex! ?

I love this board! Fantastic responses all, thank you.

I thought it was really odd of them to ask us for charitable donations when we were receiving a huge amount of need based aid. And I told them we were simply not in a position to do so.

We were told there was a large donor whose own donation was going to be based on the percentage of the current class that would be donating as well. I told them we’d be happy to accept donations from that large donor, such that it might change our financial picture. In that event, we’d consider a much smaller donation to the school.

I was puzzled that there was some large donor out there who truly had no concept as to how difficult it is for families with financial need.

And I stressed how grateful we were for the wonderful aid our pups received. I applauded everyone who was not just in a position to be so generous, but who also acted on it.

Our kids’ colleges have a parents fund. We donated to that. It was a small amount while they were students ($25) but we have continued to donate since they graduated…but larger amounts.

Just donate a minimal amount. Seriously - the percentage of giving is what’s important. Can you do $1?

Rankings and such have a factor in them regarding how many current students families donate. It doesn’t matter how much, just the percentage.

THIS. I have donated to the “parents fund” every year. Small amounts, specified to FA. I think there is a metric of % of parents that donate that probably means something to the school, more than my small donation would individually.