Annual Giving Rate at Princeton Tanks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's reassuring that people here don't just take things at face value and can think of reasons why the story OP is trying to tell might not be the only story.

What's your angle, OP? That Princeton is in some sort of trouble? They're doing just fine.

Totally. Seems OP has an agenda...why just pick out Princeton. Crazy stuff.

Princeton as a university has one of the highest alumni giving rates in the country. So it is true that the share of alums giving has dropped but it is still higher than most other universities and many Princeton alums really love their Alma Mater.

I am a Princeton alum and I also think increased income inequality may have led to lower giving rates. If billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and Ron Perelman can give $50 million plus to Princeton and not miss it, I would rather give my donations to less prominent organizations like food pantries and homeless shelters where my money can mean the difference between having enough food for dinner or not.

[Anonymous]

Princeton always had one of the highest alumni giving rates. US News used to allocate 5-10% of their ranking formula to alumni giving rates. For the last 50 years the leaders were Dartmouth, Princeton, ND, Williams, Holy Cross, Wellesley, Amherst, Bowdoin, and Davidson. Not sure if any are over 50% giving rate but did read Holy Cross was in the 46-47% range so perhaps they are the leader.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in philanthropy at a top-ranked university. A few things:

1. Participation rate is eminently fudge-able and essentially meaningless. There is no single source of truth or validation for the numbers schools put out.
2. No one ever believed Princeton’s alumni giving percentage was real (even in the context of #1, where it’s a very manipulable stat to begin with).
3. As others have mentioned, giving patterns and habits change over time. Trust in higher ed institutions has been declining for decades. The wealth gap has grown. More people from less affluent backgrounds are going to elite institutions. Etc.
4. Many schools are raising way more money from fewer donors (see wealth gap), so the work of chasing a participation stat is just not worth it.

Find another stone to grind your axe on, OP.

The Princeton alumni giving percentage might be real. In the past, going to Princeton was almost joining a cult. The alumni are fanatical about the school in a way that you don't see with most T20 schools.

Sure, maybe! I’m just saying that professionals who do this for a living never believed it. And that even if it were once true, there are a million good reasons it might not be true anymore, most of which make much more sense than OP’s dopey theory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work in philanthropy at a top-ranked university. A few things:

1. Participation rate is eminently fudge-able and essentially meaningless. There is no single source of truth or validation for the numbers schools put out.
2. No one ever believed Princeton’s alumni giving percentage was real (even in the context of #1, where it’s a very manipulable stat to begin with).
3. As others have mentioned, giving patterns and habits change over time. Trust in higher ed institutions has been declining for decades. The wealth gap has grown. More people from less affluent backgrounds are going to elite institutions. Etc.
4. Many schools are raising way more money from fewer donors (see wealth gap), so the work of chasing a participation stat is just not worth it.

Find another stone to grind your axe on, OP.

How is it a manipulable stat? Participation rate has a clear meaning. It’s not open to interpretation. They could be outright lying (which I doubt) but I don’t understand how you fudge the numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So let me get this straight. Princeton has been and remains a top university with huge endowment and fundraising, elite by every measure. But you are unhappy that it is too diverse. And the best you could come up with to claim it is declining is that the annual fund participation rate went from very high to still high?

Don't be an ass.

What bothers me is the prospect that recent graduates and current students may be having a more stressful and less enjoyable experience there.

I'm happy if it's more diverse if that's accompanied by continued satisfaction among students when it comes to their academic and social experience. If it's not, that calls for some reflection on the part of university officials as to whether they are admitting the right kids and/or enabling the kids they are admitting to have a positive experience.

The decline in alumni giving is quite steep in recent years and apparently at an 80-year low.

Your argument quite literally boils down to people of color are ruining the institution.

Quite literally it does nothing of the sort.

Oh sorry, you say that people of color are ruining the institution…with a couple extra words! So different! Silly me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to Yale, not Princeton. So did my husband. We used to give a small amount every year and we both had a very good experience at Yale. We don't bother anymore. I don't know if our kids will have any interest in going to Yale or have the credentials (they are still young) but the fact that Yale seems willing to move away from caring about family connections and is constantly crowing about how many first gen applicants they accept, makes me not care as much about sending them money. I am sure that those first gen applicants are terrific and deserve to be at Yale, but I don't like that they are holding my accomplishments against my kids. My parents worked really hard to become the first in their families to go to state colleges in the 1960s. My parents' hard work is something to be proud of and that I'm glad was not held against me when I applied to Yale. I was truly middle class, so not low income, and my parents went to college, so not first gen. That is not the same thing as being a wealthy kid from generations of college graduates. This new emphasis on FGLI is a blunt instrument.

If you don't want your accomplishments to be held against your kids, just don't check the legacy box. Plenty of middle class kids are making it in, and Yale is need blind so your kids will not have as hard of a journey as a non-FGLI middle class kid would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to Yale, not Princeton. So did my husband. We used to give a small amount every year and we both had a very good experience at Yale. We don't bother anymore. I don't know if our kids will have any interest in going to Yale or have the credentials (they are still young) but the fact that Yale seems willing to move away from caring about family connections and is constantly crowing about how many first gen applicants they accept, makes me not care as much about sending them money. I am sure that those first gen applicants are terrific and deserve to be at Yale, but I don't like that they are holding my accomplishments against my kids. My parents worked really hard to become the first in their families to go to state colleges in the 1960s. My parents' hard work is something to be proud of and that I'm glad was not held against me when I applied to Yale. I was truly middle class, so not low income, and my parents went to college, so not first gen. That is not the same thing as being a wealthy kid from generations of college graduates. This new emphasis on FGLI is a blunt instrument.

So was affirmative action. How did you feel about that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to Yale, not Princeton. So did my husband. We used to give a small amount every year and we both had a very good experience at Yale. We don't bother anymore. I don't know if our kids will have any interest in going to Yale or have the credentials (they are still young) but the fact that Yale seems willing to move away from caring about family connections and is constantly crowing about how many first gen applicants they accept, makes me not care as much about sending them money. I am sure that those first gen applicants are terrific and deserve to be at Yale, but I don't like that they are holding my accomplishments against my kids. My parents worked really hard to become the first in their families to go to state colleges in the 1960s. My parents' hard work is something to be proud of and that I'm glad was not held against me when I applied to Yale. I was truly middle class, so not low income, and my parents went to college, so not first gen. That is not the same thing as being a wealthy kid from generations of college graduates. This new emphasis on FGLI is a blunt instrument.

NP here. Thank you for your candid perspective. I had this idea in my head that if I had gone to Yale and had kids who might be interested in attending Yale, I would be giving a fair amount to give my kids an advantage. (This is all hypothetical of course). I have never heard someone articulate it the way you just did - it's food for thought for sure.

There's definitely a new emphasis on FGLI, rural students, and international students in the name of equity. I don't know if that's going to change at these elite schools or not, but it is unsettling for parents these days for sure.

It's unsettling that people still want to keep legacies today.

We're you similarly unsettled by affirmative action?

[Anonymous]

Alumni giving rates are tanking at most top schools for several reasons. Most elite schools have enormous endowments, have become way too woke for a lot of their conservative and moderate alumni, and legacy kids are rejected at too high a rate. So why give. Would expect Notre Dame and Holy Cross to be more immune from the woke factor and both schools respect legacy admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in philanthropy at a top-ranked university. A few things:

1. Participation rate is eminently fudge-able and essentially meaningless. There is no single source of truth or validation for the numbers schools put out.
2. No one ever believed Princeton’s alumni giving percentage was real (even in the context of #1, where it’s a very manipulable stat to begin with).
3. As others have mentioned, giving patterns and habits change over time. Trust in higher ed institutions has been declining for decades. The wealth gap has grown. More people from less affluent backgrounds are going to elite institutions. Etc.
4. Many schools are raising way more money from fewer donors (see wealth gap), so the work of chasing a participation stat is just not worth it.

Find another stone to grind your axe on, OP.

The Princeton alumni giving percentage might be real. In the past, going to Princeton was almost joining a cult. The alumni are fanatical about the school in a way that you don't see with most T20 schools.

Sure, maybe! I’m just saying that professionals who do this for a living never believed it. And that even if it were once true, there are a million good reasons it might not be true anymore, most of which make much more sense than OP’s dopey theory.

Do the professional fund raisers at other schools believe the size of the Princeton endowment? It's much bigger per student than at any other top school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work in philanthropy at a top-ranked university. A few things:

1. Participation rate is eminently fudge-able and essentially meaningless. There is no single source of truth or validation for the numbers schools put out.
2. No one ever believed Princeton’s alumni giving percentage was real (even in the context of #1, where it’s a very manipulable stat to begin with).
3. As others have mentioned, giving patterns and habits change over time. Trust in higher ed institutions has been declining for decades. The wealth gap has grown. More people from less affluent backgrounds are going to elite institutions. Etc.
4. Many schools are raising way more money from fewer donors (see wealth gap), so the work of chasing a participation stat is just not worth it.

Find another stone to grind your axe on, OP.

Agree that participation stat going down is not a money problem. However, it probably indicates that alumni enthusiasm is deteriorating. Future alumni network will be weaker.

[Anonymous]

once you stopped being able to deduct this stuff, giving went down. not brain surgery

[Anonymous]

I never understood giving to universities and don't ever intend to.

I think it's for a class of people who have less bourgeois charitable sensibilities, i.e., I paid already and I can think of a hundred more needy causes and I'm not so insecure that I need to try to do something to make the institution I attended seem more sterling after I've left - and even more odd when the institution already has a great reputation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think sensibilities have changed.

If you want to use your money to do good, a donation to an alma mater with billions is the last place you'd send it.

I would regard the 40 percent who are still donating to Princeton as people who are trying to game things for their offspring. A donation to Princeton is not the same as trying to end starvation or wars or helping orphans or assisting on any number of issues.

Princeton will do fine without your contribution. But those dollars can have a lot of impact elsewhere.

+1 I'm a Princeton alumna. Their endownment is enormous, and I donate annually so it looks good for their stats, but it's not a huge amount. I'd rather give money to Doctors Without Borders or World Central Kitchen who are trying to save people from dying of disease and hunger in war zones.

Participation is what they want. Sooner or later they are going to do something that makes you proud and that year you're $100 donation might be $10,000

[Anonymous]

If I am going to donate to an organization with a massive endowment, I want to see them using that endowment. The Ivies I see with these huge endowments should be providing merit aid for students. We are a family that is in that in between space where we won't qualify for aid but don't make so much that we can just pay full rate. We have been saving but it is irksome that schools with billions of dollars of funds won't do anything to help us but will provide full fare for other people because their kids are deemed more valuable to the school. They have the same stats as other kids but are more worthy of discounted or free tuition?