Please don’t think that only full pay pare ts are asked to contribute. Daughter’s school asks everyone. Althetic departmentioned has a fund raiser e er year. Team has several. School calls and sends cards. The sorority, the student ministry, the band…everyone wants my money.
You can just ask to be removed from the calling list. Also, one reason they ask current students to give small amounts is to establish the giving habit.
I have had some great chats with students who called from D2’s school. One even is connected with me on LinkedIn now. 
I don’t mind. I make relatively small donations to my son’s college when they have fundraisers. It’s not a lot but it’s what I can do for now. I’m grateful for the opportunities the college has given him.
Just say no. Politely. The poor kid on the other end of the line probably would have preferred a work-study job scraping plates in the cafeteria but got stuck with this much less pleasant one.
I used to give when I could designate my gift be made to benefit my son’s club team at school. But they no longer give me that option. My son told me that club sports have to turn this money over to the Athletic Director who sits on it and doesn’t distribute it. Supposedly the money is saved in case the team ever makes it to regionals and nationals and needs it for transportation and hotels.
Not college, but kind of related: My kid attends a lovely prep school which is possible only because of the generous FA the school has given us. Even full pay kids are subsidized, really, because tuition doesn’t nearly cover the actual cost. I always donate to the school’s annual fund, and though my kid has never been asked (she’s a current senior), she has made a gift to the annual fund each year from her summer job earnings. Her attitude is “The school has already given me so much, and I want others to have those opportunities as well.” I have a feeling she will be a generous supporter when she is an adult with a full time career. I expect we will be supporters of her college, as well.
My oldest son goes to the school I graduated from, not full pay, he has a sch-ship from the state not the school, but now that he is in grad school, now that I think about it, he is full pay. Anyway, it is all about the benjamins. Seriously. When the football coach is making $5M a year and this and that college admin is making $150K+ a year I just laugh when they call me. Keep in mind essential service like the career center are probably underfunded so it is an easy no thanks when they call me. It is like the government. It is amazing how much they can waste yet they ask for more! My HOA operates on the same principals and what is said is I am the only one who notices. I swear we are a country, a nation, a world, of sheep that just follow the ass in front of them!
Get a phone with caller Block feature. After a few times, the phone calls will stop automatically.
I graduated an entire generation ago, and yes my elderly widowed mother still gets calls for donations from my alma mater.
All the private colleges/universities do this. All you have to do is to ask to have your name removed from the list. My D was a caller for her school (it was an easy summer job) and the minute someone says remove my name–she did it.
That way you won’t get bothered again.
We happily and freely give to my undergrad and grad schools, my wife’s grad school and both of my D’s schools
Indeed. I was on a near-full ride FA/scholarship package and yet, my LAC started soliciting donations several months before I graduated.
I’m of the view that colleges shouldn’t target students themselves until they have graduated before starting the solicitations…and be mindful of soliciting money from parents of students on FA/scholarships as 1. It’s likely to be off putting by reminding them of the fact they have little/no money to give and 2. A waste of solicitation resources which would better be used to target wealthier parents who are more likely to have funds to donate or alumni who have already graduated and have started establishing themselves financially.
Depends on the kid/campus culture. At my LAC, the cafeteria jobs were usually occupied by international students on college scholarships or those whose families had a sudden economic downturn such as the South Korean students in the wake of the Asian Economic Crisis in the late '90s who weren’t eligible for work study.
While working the phones soliciting alumni donations may not be pleasant, it was actually considered one of the better work-study jobs at Oberlin…especially in comparison with working as dining hall staff.
My kid attends a service academy. Imagine my surprise when we got hit up for the Margin of Excellence fund, the Superintendent’s fund, etc. They had me rollin’ on the floor – consider my tax dollars my donation. Click.
A well-meaning academy booster later tried to explain:
When I asked for a specific example of “activities that are of great value but outside the “core” designation,” she mentioned all the opportunities for travel and study abroad. I guess that government-funded tour of Afghanistan doesn’t count.
Over half the kids at our D’s LAC are there because of financial aid; we know some of them. We are delighted to contribute, and love the thank-you cards we get from students. And, yes, they call once a year to ask for a bit more.
The one that gets me is the call from my long-ago roommate from the school I transferred away from because I was miserable. I like her a lot, but I didn’t like the hard sell to get me to donate “anything” so that “our” class would have 100% participation. It’s ridiculous to count someone who transferred away as part of the class, and it was a little hurtful that I was getting guilted by a person I like.
Because I am stubborn, I wouldn’t make the token donation to help them get their 100%. I just really was very unhappy there.
I’m happy to give to my alma mater. It supported me with generous merit scholarships even though I was an OOS transfer. I will always appreciate that. My kids are adults with jobs, so I leave the supporting of their schools to them.
Well I’ll take the opposing view. I consider it gratitude. For a full or substantial pay, I agree to wait but I don’t have a problem with a student calling me.
But if someone is on a full ride, the least a student/family can do is give a little. $25 is $25. Give more when you can. I attended a state school on full tuition that was funded by an alumni fund. I would have given a small amount as a student if asked and have contributed over the years partly because alumni before me afforded me the option to attend tuition free.
Honestly, I think anyone can/shoud give $25. JMHO. Except @garland to the school she left. That’s just ridiculous to have her on the list at a school she never graduated from. Do they call the kids they kicked out, too? 
Most students on full-rides/near-full rides don’t have that kind of spare cash when they’re students. And to call upon their parents to do so would be worse as was the case with my parents during my undergrad years.
In their cases, it’s far better to wait until those students have graduated and have established themselves financially first.
And forced gratitude of the type above is very offputting and if inflicted as was shown here in @garland’s case :
shows a degree of extreme tone-deafness and hard-sell that shouldn’t be tolerated from one’s alma mater. In short, it comes across as a bit high handed and arrogant of the institution concerned.
If other non-profits attempted to pull that hard sell, they’d drive off most potential donors and rightfully go out of business.
I make a small donation to D’s parent fund every year because i think it ups their participation % and that’s helpful. I am grateful to the school for the generous financial aid she receives and will probably always support it.
That said I hate phone calls asking me for anything and always immediately block those numbers. Her school sends a letter or email.
Some schools get a lot of leverage from “giving %” (parents and grads) … they are not expecting big donations, just a token nod to the effort. Even in those cases, it is fine to say No Thank You. Just try not to be offended.
At our son’s school, I’ve done the calling for parent phone-athon. It is a fun way to connect, especially with freshman parents with lots of questions. I actually don’t push to know whether they give or how much. They can give those details on the website.