No Wallet Left Behind

My classmates and I joked that when we graduated from college, the dean handed us a folder that held 1) Our diplomas and 2) an alumni giving form. That wasn't really true, but even if it had been, we would have been behind the curve. Colleges nowadays start working people over before midterms.

The need to drum up financial support from alums and alums-to-be presents an interesting situation. Essentially, the college asks you to give it money after you've graduated instead of asking you to give more money while you're still a student. The fund-raising letters I used to receive (one advantage of frequent moving) highlighted how I had the opportunity to study at Northwestern because of alums who'd gone before me who had given to the school. In other words, alums gave money and my tuition was only marginally astronomical, instead of astronomically astronomical. Now, because I didn't have to pay them as much as I might have then, I'm invited to pay them some more now. You may wonder why they didn't just charge me more then and save themselves some postage, and really, so do I.

I'm sure there are reasons, and they all have to do with marketing and trying to keep the sticker shock of college costs down and whatnot. But the upshot of it is, that if the college has its way, you will give them money for a very long time, and only for the very first part of that time will you actually be getting a service for your money. The rest of the time you'll be helping them keep the cycle going.

Except with this new kind of thinking, though, in which the college will start trying to dun you for your "gift" while you're still paying for the service. If you work for a college, they'll also try to scare up a few bucks off you; one supervisor I had at the one where I used to work said he expected to see that everyone in the department contribute to the voluntary fund drive. Most colleges work this way, it seems, as what we read of college costs and tuition rarely talks about holding costs down and most often about ways to get revenue up. Trim an associate dean here and there? Tell the president to get by on the middle six figures instead of the high ones? Tell the football coach he can't have as many assistant coaches as he has players, and that maybe he doesn't need to be paid more than the unversity prez and the state governor combined? Nope. Not gonna happen. Go soak some 18-year-old kid for donations before he gets his first syllabus.

That'll teach him, for sure.