Should Alumni Make a Dedicated Effort to Donate to Their Alma Mater?

The education is probably still helping you with your career. You likely had no or minimal long-term impact on the school.

Great post. Giving because we think we "owe" it due to our personal experience is a bad way of analyzing contributions. We probably all agree that it is better to do a lot of good with $1000 than to do minimal good with it. If we agree, then it only makes sense that we should give our $1000 to the organization that we think will do the most good with it. Our personal experiences are irrelevant.

Let's imagine there are two sinking boats. One contains a single individual, but that individual saved my life when I was a kid. The other boat contains 500 strangers. If I can only save one boat, I should save the one with 500 people in it. It is irrelevant that the lone individual saved my life. I certainly owe that person a great deal of gratitude, but that doesn't mean I should let 500 people die so I can return a favor.

Don't give to universities. There are much, much better causes out there.

alumnirelations wrote:

You caught me. I made an error in my response (I was getting heated because I am passionate about philanthropy). What you pay in tuition is actually LOWER than what you pay in tuition. Philanthropy helps cover the rest. At ALL institutions.

But I bet this isn't disclosed to new students, is it? No one pulled me aside as a freshman and said "You know, of course that your tuition doesn't really cover the cost of your education here. So when you graduate, we expect some kickbacks once you start your career. You will be looked down upon if you don't comply"

I went to a large-ish state public school on a full ride academic & needs based scholarship. I am relatively successful now and donate a substantial amount to the university yearly.

I give a much smaller amount to my graduate school, to which I paid ~$85k in tuition to for a professional degree. I only contribute to the graduate school to help their numbers with regards to alumni donation participation and to have a history of donating in the case one or both of my children might want to go there.

A university needs to make a compelling case as to why a donation is warranted. Did the university provide financial aid to the alumnus? Did the university facilitate admission to graduate school? Did the university help the alumnus find true employment (i.e., a real job and not just driving Uber)? Did the university provide a positive academic experience for the alumnus? If the answer to each one of these questions is no, then it is fairly absurd to claim that the alumnus owes anything to the university.

The "school" I attended (I will never call it my alma mater) provided a worthless curriculum. I majored in science and they offered no lab courses so I learned practically nothing. They permitted a student to plagiarize my senior project and graduate. I have not been able to get a job in my major. So I told them to remove me from their mailing list.