<p>Divine Comedy and Phuriku:</p>
<p>If you look at the PDF david05 provided, alumni giving only amounts to 25% of total university giving. Giving from foundations, corporations, and non-alumni actually account for about 65% of total giving to universities.</p>
<p>I forget the exact statistic, but in alumni reports I’ve received, alumni giving only accounts for a % of total giving to UChicago. I forgot what the exact % is, but it certainly wasn’t something like 70-80% of total giving to the school. I’d expect this is true for UChicago’s peer schools as well - alum giving is only part of the picture.</p>
<p>So, what this tells me is that UChicago is probably behind in alumni giving, and a small class size relates to that, as you both have mentioned. Further, though, what about giving from all other sources - such as from foundations, corporations, etc.? It seems as if UChicago lags there as well, and this is an area unrelated to the size of an alumni base. </p>
<p>As a case in point, Johns Hopkins, a school with a small undergrad and not particularly loyal college alums, greatly out-performs UChicago. I imagine this is because Hopkins does a tremendous job in securing donations from foundations (and perhaps corporations as well).</p>
<p>I don’t think UChicago could do better than Hopkins here but, as a research powerhouse, shouldn’t UChicago’s fundraising be stronger? Apparently, there is a lot more to target than just a college’s alumni base. </p>
<p>What’s interesting to me is that the list david05 provided is basically a whos-who of the major american research institutions. For some reason, UChicago isn’t on this list, and it’s a bit startling, given that world-class research is an expensive, expensive endeavor.</p>