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<p>Well, I’m sure you can consider your son a donation! He might not be tax deductible though.</p>
<p>My school gave me a full tuition scholarship (and to my husband too). Of course we give back, and I don’t think we’ve made up for it yet. It’s a school my younger son wants to apply to, so certainly can’t hurt to keep giving. Maybe I am crazy, but I also give to my private high school, the universities from which my husband and I have graduate degrees, my older son’s university (so grateful they took him from the wait list!) and also to the university where I used to teach to support my old department. I direct the donations toward scholarships in almost all cases. Yeah, crazy.</p>
<p>I do make an annual donation to my undergrad school. College was a transforming experience for me and in appreciation I make an annual donation. My school used to be my largest donation each year but after reading some articles on leverage and impact of donations I radically changes my donation strategy … now I still make a nominal donation each year to my school but make my largest donations to local service organizations.</p>
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What about not giving because you don’t approve of how they are spending? Or because you want your charitable donations to be spent in different ways?</p>
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I’m hardly an advocate for mindless charity. Rather than cutting off all your funds, donate to a department whose spending is “appropriate” for your tastes. Others in this thread have shared what they do. </p>
<p>But as I have said, what I don’t agree with is basing your donations off of other’s donations. Give if you were to give. </p>
<p>I attended a very wealthy secondary school and immensely wealthy grad school. While my college would be considered wealthy by most standards it’s poor relative to its peer schools. DH and I attended the same college and grad school and we agree the our undergrad institution is where we’ll continue to spend the bulk of our ed $. DH likes to say that any money we donated to our grad school would be used to ensure that no leaf ever reaches the ground on campus, and while that’s obviously hyperbole, it’s clear to me that it would cost more than we’ll accumulate in a lifetime to make any kind of difference there. My high school doesn’t really need my donation either; it has a ton of big hitter donors.</p>
<p>I feel like my donation will make a difference at my college, and that the school’s priorities are in order. For instance, the school has historically been less racially diverse than I’d like. Last year the DOA took a directive to increase diversity from the new college president seriously. The result was that the school offered more family fly-ins and offered FA to more minority candidates (kids who in the past might have been rejected for financial, not academic reasons) and totally blew out the budget, to the tune of a million dollars. With the president’s backing the DOA went to the trustees, and they found a way to come up with the money, primarily from additional donations from the trustees themselves. The incoming class was much more diverse and still of the same caliber as past classes.</p>
<p>I try to either give to the general fund or to fund institutional needs identified by the college. I once worked in higher ed admin and the number of donations we had for things we didn’t really need was frustrating. Paying for maintenance for the cafeteria or office supplies for the career center isn’t sexy, but for the college to function smoothly these have to be funded In addition to scholarships and building projects. By giving unrestricted funds I feel I’m allowing the college to set priorities based on need, not political expedience.</p>
<p>My mother donated fairly regularly for 30+ years to her Ivy League school. Right up until my sister was rejected. She doesn’t donate anymore!</p>
<p>I plan to donate to my alma mater, but I think it’s more important that I donate to my HS. It’s a public school in the city, not in a wealthy suburb, and donations are critical for it to maintain its excellence. They always let us know which new buildings or programs in our school were funded by the city and which were covered by private donations. Also, they just named the auditorium after someone who I think is an honestly awful person, so if I can ever donate enough to get them to change it, that would be wonderful!</p>
<p>Our son received financial aid and would not have been able to attend his fabulous university without that support. My husband and I donate, and will continue to donate to this school, because we are so grateful to everyone who made it possible for our son to have a chance to attend. He feels blessed to have had that opportunity and will be donating as soon as he is able. We are happy to be paying it forward.</p>
<p>Oldest went to school with a very large merit scholarship. She will donate until she has given back that amount, and then will make whatever decisions she makes.</p>
<p>I went to school with a scholarship and I have long since paid that back. I like to endow chairs and scholarships, or pay towards those things. I’d be happy to redo a cafeteria, too. I just don’t want to donate to any additional administrative spending. It’s a pet peeve of mine.</p>
<p>I think if you can do so and you have received a scholarship of any variety, it is good to pay that back. Then, if there’s something else you get interested in, the arts, classics, departments that get the short shrift from time to time? or whatever your “thing” is… That’s up to you.</p>
<p>It’s also good to remember that even full pay students don’t actually pay the full cost of their education, even at private colleges. </p>
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S received a merit scholarship to his LAC. I used to adjunct there and did so for 6.5 years at the typical exploitative wages with no benefits. Even adding his merit scholarship to my wages barely adds up to what would have been minimally reasonable, so I don’t feel particularly indebted. What S does in that regard in the future is up to him.</p>
<p>^ S is in the same situation. My guess is that it would be a while before he will be financially capable of donating. He is deep in the hole of student loan debt right now. It would be a while before he climbs up from that hole. To the school’s credit, he would be even deeper in that hole if he did not receive some support from his schools (could be easily $200k-300k in debt , instead of a half of this amount - occasionally we have some thought about using the money from our retirement account or even borrowing some money from our accumulated equity in our house to help shoulder his large amount of student loan debt. But we may run the risk of “becoming his burden” soon so we have not decided to do that. He does not have debt for his UG. But his debt for professional school is significant.)</p>
<p>The educational loans and costs of starting a post-college life are such some of the conversations about donating back to college I’ve seen here on CC and on my college’s alum site…especially if one received full FA/scholarships from said college strikes me as a bit odd and to some extent, reeking of one-sided institutional entitlement. </p>
<p>Doesn’t the soon-to=be-graduate or alum also have the right to determine whether he/she donates based on his/her positive/negative experiences along with his/her financial capacity? Shouldn’t the institution concerned and the alumni association also have to put in some effort to convince alums to donate?</p>
<p>I attended three of HYPMS but only give to one. I felt attending my UG institution probably changed the course of my life. Might not have as I have always been reasonably hardworking (except when I am posting on CC) and am probably smarter/more creative than the average bear. But, I have a sense that it made a big difference (not without my effort, but I’m pretty sure that it changed the probabilities of good things happening to me professionally). I have been reasonably successfully professionally and financially. I love what I do. And, I feel my UG was helpful in getting me to where I am. </p>
<p>So, I gave every year … until they didn’t except my incredibly bright kid and did admit the laregly less bright kids of a number of my classmates and friends. I was mixed as I wouldn’t have wanted him to go there because he is also severely dyslexic and attended an LAC – which I put on his list as I thought it and its nearest competitor would be better for him. Nonetheless, it made me mad that they didn’t accept him. His UG school treated him so well that I have been giving to them. He did incredibly well there and is going to be attending grad school at one of the schools I attended. I’ll let him give there assuming he does well in life (probability reasonably high as he started his first company in college). My next big reunion is coming and I’m deciding whether or not to return to giving to my alma mater. We’ll see. But all of these school have very big endowments. </p>
<p>I endowed a small scholarship upon my father’s death at his alma mater – as a poor Jewish kid growing up in New York, he was given a full ride at a school that had earlier had institutionalized discrimination against Jews in admissions. He felt grateful and contributed to his school. Now, each year, my mother gets to meet the kid who has the scholarship in honor of my father.</p>
<p>I’m trying to think through charitable giving generally and see if there is a way I can do something that focuses both my skills and contacts and my money to really make a difference. I’m not there yet. </p>
<p>Shawbridge–I agree with you about giving and trying to come up with a way to make a difference. Sometimes, we don’t know how we make a difference so it’s not something you can measure. My H and I are in the process of creating a charitable trust where the donors retain control. We’re getting advice, but it’s still difficult to narrow it down so that we can really do something positive with our money.</p>
<p>I like the idea of poor graduates donating at least five dollars for every year they’re past their grad date, if the would like to donate to the school at all. It creates a giving habit, increases the number of alumni on the donors list, and one day the grad’s annual gift might jump into higher amounts as his/her income increases. FWIW. </p>
<p>Donating money is not the only form of giving. </p>
<p>During the recent economic down turn when there weren’t many internships, I volunteered my own time and got funding from my company to take few students from my kids’ school and my alma mater. </p>
<p>My good friend, a very successful hedge fund manager, mentors students on FA who want to go into finance. He meets with them regularly, brings them to NYC to meet people in the business, and helps them with job placement after graduation.</p>
<p>D2 just finished a non-profit internship in NYC. She was paid a decent wage and received free lodging in NYC. There were 15 students in her program, they all had an excellent experience and made a difference. All of that was possible because of a donor.</p>