<p>Cue7:</p>
<p>You’re right about donation amounts correlating with scientific and medical research. But I still don’t quite understand why total fundraising dollars is so important to you. Princeton’s amount is even lower than Chicago’s, and would you really argue that Princeton’s financial situation is troubling? And what about Caltech, especially since you seem to think that the total number of alumni is irrelevant to this issue? At least from my perspective, it seems that these cases would contradict your concern, as both universities are doing fine from a financial and research perspective.</p>
<p>Now, there’s a reason why MIT and Hopkins can pull in this kind of money, and the answer is, simply: because they need it. Science isn’t cheap. With science (esp. engineering and medicine), you don’t have to just pay for human resources; you have to pay for lab equipment and devices that tend to be quite expensive. Chicago does substantially less lab science research and substantially more theoretical research than MIT and Hopkins, which I assume costs significantly less money. So likely, Chicago is pulling in as much as it needs.</p>
<p>Also, it’s almost certainly the case that Chicago tries to obtain in donations the amount that it thinks necessary to operate the University. While MIT and Hopkins likely NEED donations due to the nature of their work, Chicago doesn’t necessarily NEED the cahs and therefore likely doesn’t campaign as aggressively. I’m sure if Princeton really wanted to, it could collect as much as Columbia. But if its current operating expenses are fine already, then what’s the point? Same with Chicago. If the lab expenses for half of Chicago’s scientists basically amount to the cost of chalk, pencils, and paper, and we’re already paying our professors 3rd best in the nation, is there really a point to aggressive campaigns?</p>