<p>UChicago raised $255M in the last year.</p>
<p>This figure is well behind its similarly situated peers - Columbia ($490M), Johns Hopkins ($480M), Penn ($440M), Duke ($350M), and Cornell ($330M). </p>
<p>Any idea why? Is this because UChicago's medical plant is generally weaker than these other schools, and lots of gifts go to medicine? Is UChicago just poor on this front? </p>
<p>Some of the above schools are involved in major capital campaigns, others are not.</p>
<p>It’d be interesting to know if the source of the money is from a few big donors or from many small donors. I would think schools with heavy emphasis on sports would have a much broader and supportive alumni network. Lack of an engineering program could also be a factor.</p>
<p>In the past the major donors came from MBA types, hedge-fund managers, successful corporate arbitrage lawyers, but rarely from medical professionals (very few have deep pockets)…but now more than ever most of BIG MONEY comes from STEM/engineering background moguls who made it big…that is why Stanford leads in this category…</p>
<p>…and as I have said in another thread…Chicago lacking SEAS/engineering can ultimately lead to its demise…because whether we want to admit it or not…that is where the future lies…along with the donations that Chicago will need to thrive in the future.</p>
<p>Don’t forget Stanford raised $1B. Talk about setting the bar high.</p>
<p>Most of the BIG MONEY comes from successful entrepreneurs that make up the T and E in STEM. Chicago has the S (science) and the M (math) but no T (technology) or E (engineering)…this is a serious deficit…and we need to address it sooner than later.</p>
<p>I find the engineering school argument unconvincing. Northwestern and Wash U both have engineering programs, and they raised significantly less than UChicago (NU at $230M, Wash U at $200M). </p>
<p>Further, at schools like Columbia and Penn, engineering is a pretty small part of the overall makeup of the school. Engineering probably plays a larger role at NU than it does at UPenn.</p>
<p>From what I can see, all the top schools have at least 1.) a major hospital system that probably brings in lots of gifts and/or 2.) strong tech/engineering schools (MIT, Stanford). Certain schools, like Stanford, have both. Penn, Columbia, and Hopkins, have major medical centers that draw in gifts. </p>
<p>While UChicago doesn’t have engineering, I’m wondering if the low fundraising demonstrates that its hospital system (similar to NU’s), isn’t quite seen as first rank or as extensive, in contrast to what you see at Hopkins or Harvard or Columbia. At the same time, WashU has a world-class medical plant and an engineering school, but it draws in drastically less money than its peers, so I’m really not sure what’s going on here. </p>
<p>Either way, it’s of considerable concern that UChicago is drawing in hundreds of millions less than its similar peers - who seem to resemble UChicago closely, except for perhaps have small engineering schools. Frankly, it’s somewhat embarrassing for a research institution of its caliber to be so far back in fundraising.</p>
<p>I hate to admit this but historically Chicago grads were not very “generous” as other school graduates have been. I know that for years our alumni giving rates were dismal and only recently is it ascending to a “decent” level but still lags behind schools like Princeton. Unfortunately, I know too many alumni who don’t participate nor give to Chicago even after becoming successful…it is interesting to note that those who benefited most from scholarships are active alumni who “give” back and those who “paid” in full are less likely to donate…</p>
<p>…just my sense…</p>
<p>gravitas2: I also find the argument of a lack of loyal alumni unconvincing as well. As seen here:</p>
<p>[Top</a> 15 Universities With the Most Wealthy Alumni - ABC News](<a href=“3 Public Universities Made List of 15 Schools With the Wealthiest Alumni - ABC News”>3 Public Universities Made List of 15 Schools With the Wealthiest Alumni - ABC News)</p>
<p>UChicago has a perfectly impressive number of ultra-wealthy alumni, and, for long stretches of time, I don’t think satisfaction with UChicago was any less than satisfaction at Columbia or UPenn (which, for long periods of time, were not particularly known for student/alumni satisfaction).</p>
<p>Cue7: It’s the combination of NUMBER of alumni donors and the AMOUNT that the donor gives along with anonymous non-alumni donors that make up the total for each school…and your assertion about the medical center’s prowess or lack thereof has little to do with how much people give. After all, Washington University is “mainly” known for its medical education more than anything else…without its medical school or premedical education very few of the top students (especially the Asians) would even apply.</p>
<p>Or maybe they just need to improve the development office…like they did with admissions.</p>
<p>Moreover Cue7 you are singing to the choir. I am also dismayed at such a poor showing. I totally agree Chicago produces many wealthy alumni as noted in many publications but that does not necessarily equate to “alumni” giving back to the University…I remember reading a story a few years back about an extremely wealthy philanthropist who received all his degrees from Chicago who donated something like 20 million dollars to the local college instead of his alma mater…because, according to the alumnus, Chicago didn’t need his money…</p>
<p>Once again, I’m appalled by the fact that nobody on this board can contribute anything more than speculation. I have no idea how any of you got into Chicago, much less graduated from it. Lack of a top medical or engineering school? That’s your best guess?</p>
<p>If you conduct a simple per capita analysis, you will see that Chicago performs in line with its peers on the fundraising front, and significantly outperforms schools like Cornell. Per capita is obviously the figure we’re looking for; it shows how much alumni are donating on average AND is more relevant to institutional health, since it takes less money to fund fewer students.</p>
<p>Chicago’s a smaller school than all of the schools Cue7 listed; overall, it’s about 1/2 the size of Columbia! And when you go back to the pre-00s when most donating alumni graduated, Chicago was even smaller compared to its peers.</p>
<p>Phuriku:</p>
<p>I’m not buying the per capita alumni argument at all either. MIT has a smaller alumni base than UChicago, and does drastically better. Johns Hopkins has a similar alumni base to UChicago, and does drastically better (without being known for a particularly loyal alumni base - their alumni giving rate is well below UChicago’s, and has been for quite some time).</p>
<p>Similarly, Princeton and Dartmouth have smaller alumni bases and virtually no professional schools, but they perform quite well (Princeton at $248M, Dartmouth at $170M).</p>
<p>Additionally, you’re not assessing the gifts that could come from non-alumni, which I strongly believe form a substantial portion of the giving. </p>
<p>Relatedly, UChicago also lags significantly in government research funding:</p>
<p><a href=“http://mup.asu.edu/research2010.pdf[/url]”>http://mup.asu.edu/research2010.pdf</a> (p. 16).</p>
<p>It’s unclear why this is, although, rather than loyalty and size of alumni base, I think this has more to do with general stature as a science/tech school. Science/tech gets the most research dollars and, for whatever reason, UChicago is lagging here, by all statistical accounts.</p>
<p>Also, Phuriku, tone down the vitriol (e.g. “I have no idea how any of you got into Chicago, much less graduated from it”). Your analysis had plenty of holes too - as mentioned in my above post.</p>
<p>To second motherbear maybe they have improved the development office. As parents of a student and recent graduate we always got letters, calls, and emails requesting donations, In the last few months those efforts have at least doubled in number. Give the extra effort some time to see how and if it works. In any case, the amount of recent and current construction at the university is in the 100s of millions so they must not be too worried.</p>
<p>Lots of schools are spending hundreds of millions for construction. UChicago’s not really an outlier here. I’d imagine a lot of the big money goes toward research, and it appears UChicago is getting less of it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, no. Not a lot of schools are spending hundreds of millions for construction. Having visited quite a few peer institutions, I have never seen a school having as many construction projects at once as UChicago. When was the last time Penn built a dorm?</p>
<p>[Greater</a> Debt Loads at Schools](<a href=“Greater Debt Loads at Schools - Graphic - NYTimes.com”>Greater Debt Loads at Schools - Graphic - NYTimes.com)</p>
<p>You posted a similar thread last year. Donation per capita seems like a more accurate depiction of fundraising prowess to me. I would avoid focusing on the ultra-wealthy alum.</p>
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</p>
<p>Please refrain from making statements like this. Thanks.</p>
<p>Poplicola:</p>
<p>If you look at donations per capita, UChicago still trails several of its peers (Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, etc.). Similarly, donations per capita doesn’t capture all the donations that come from non-alumni (which would form a considerable percentage of total donations). Additionally, if you look at schools with roughly similar - or even lower - numbers of living alumni, UChicago doesn’t do particularly well (Yale, Duke, Hopkins, MIT all outperform UChicago). </p>
<p>In a similar vein, I don’t know if UChicago spends more on construction than other schools,. I didn’t research whether UChicago’s peer schools are doing as much construction, although, it seems as if other schools are very active on this front (Stanford finished a $345M new business school, Yale is working on a $0.5B dorm project, etc., Duke finished about $1B of construction in 2006 or 2007, I think).</p>
<p>You asked about Penn, and it recently finished construction on the Smilow Translational Research Center, which I believe cost $370M, and a nanotech center is in construction, for about $100M. The recent $300M gift to its medical school will probably spur more growth/construction here too. Penn hasn’t focused its efforts on dorms, but on its med/science plant of late. (The roughly $1B Penn is injecting into it’s sci/med plant could surely revamp the dorms, but that’s just not a priority at the school.)</p>
<p>I’m not sure, though, how construction projects relates to fundraising efforts. Again, all the stats I’ve seen (from last year’s thread and this one) demonstrates that UChicago is run-of-the-mill when it comes to fundraising. That’s great it’s building a lot, but, again, that doesn’t seem to reflect fundraising success at all, which is the topic of this thread.</p>
<p>According to an article from CBS from last year:</p>
<p>Where the donations came from–</p>
<p>The largest source of collegiate donations came from foundations (28.6 percent), while alumni (25.7 percent) represented the second largest donation source. Individuals who were not alumni made up the third largest giving group (18.6 percent), followed by corporations (16.6 percent). </p>
<p>[Top</a> 20 fundraising universities - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500395_162-57382280/top-20-fundraising-universities/]Top”>http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500395_162-57382280/top-20-fundraising-universities/)</p>
<p>Often these funds are restricted to very specific purposes. In fact, most of the money donated these days comes with very specific terms attached by the donor. I’m guessing a lot of Stanford’s fundraising is directed toward engineering and biomed.</p>
<p>Further details on sources of fundraising, etc. for this year:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cae.org/content/pdf/VSE_2012_Press_Release.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cae.org/content/pdf/VSE_2012_Press_Release.pdf</a></p>
<p>In this (long) video at 34:50, former UChicago President Hanna Gray talks about the difficulty universities have these days raising unrestricted funds, which universities need most. Most money comes with strings attached. In some cases it is better to turn down restricted funds because it can force a university to develop costly new programs that fit the donor’s agenda but not the university’s priorities.</p>
<p><a href=“Conversations With History - Hanna Holborn Gray - YouTube”>Conversations With History - Hanna Holborn Gray - YouTube;