<p>One additional point:</p>
<p>I’m not sure why looking at donation amount per alum matters more than the total amount for a major research university. Having a giving culture is great, but at the end of the day, major research universities want as much cash as possible to fund as much cutting edge research as possible - money’s the lifeblood of the institution.</p>
<p>So, if Hopkins has a steady supply of unrestricted money from Mayor Bloomberg, but less donation per alum, I’m not sure that matters too much, frankly. As long as Hopkins gets its $500M per year and rising, it’s fundraising is generally successful.</p>
<p>For similarly sized institutions with similar goals, I think the total amount of money raised per year matters a heck of a lot. That money relates to how much cutting edge research you can do, additional faculty you can bring in, etc.</p>
<p>Schools at the end of the day, want MORE - more money, more research, more lab space, etc. Whether the source of more comes from a few mega wealthy alums or many alums matters less than the amount accrued, year after year after year. Moreover, the fact that UChicago lags bigtime in getting government funds certainly doesn’t help either.</p>