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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Again, I have never compared W&M's giving rate [b]to other private universities[/b].

Since you are having a hard time with basic reading comprehension, here is the post I was originally responding to regarding W&M's giving rate compared to [b]other public universities:[/b]

[quote]Perhaps the town or W&M isn't for everyone, but somehow W&M is in top 3 for graduation rate and is top for alumni giving rate among national public universities. Among all colleges, it is number 6 for happiest students in Princeton Review surveys.
[/quote]

I don't care how W&M compares to other private universities. My post was responding to W&M as it compares to [b]other public universities.[/b]

[quote]Among institutional characteristics, the most significant in an analysis of over 200 universities was: Graduation rate; First year retention rate; % of students on campus (if you look at the list above, you can see many of these have a very high percentage of undergraduates housed on campus -- 94% in the case of Princeton); tuition price (positive correlation meaning higher price schools - typically private - have higher giving rates); student to faculty ratio (negative correlation); Full time student population (negative correlation).[/quote]

All of these are characteristics that a small liberal arts college with a wealthy population has advantages over large universities with less wealthy populations.

1. Graduation rate: Schools like UC-Berkeley, U. Michigan, Georgia Tech, et. al. have lower graduation rate because a significant portion of the student population is in engineering, which can often take more than 4 years to complete compared to humanities. 
2. % of students on campus: Another thing that small colleges have an advantage over large universities. Again, no way can a large public university like Berkeley, Michigan, et. al. house their entire student population on campus. They have 40,000 students.
3. tuition price: Another proxy for wealth of the student population. W&M has wealthier student population, it also has the highest tuition out of all public universities. 
4. student to faculty ratio: Again, another proxy for size of the college. 
5. Full time student population (negative correlation): Another proxy for both size and wealth of the student population. A lot of large publics have part-time students who work half the time while attending school, while wealthy student populations like W&M often don't have to work at all.

Again, everything you listed only further my heuristic that size of the college and wealth of the student population greatly affects alumni giving rate, more so than how much students enjoyed attending the college. [/quote]

OK Bill, you've convinced me that it is truly a bad thing for W&M to be on the following list of USNWR national universities ranked in order of annual giving rate.  And, since your heuristic is air tight, you are undoubtedly correct that the institutions on this list probably do not have satisfied alumni.  They have unhappy alumni who for some reason willingly give to their detested alma maters:

Princeton, Dartmouth, Notre Dame, USC, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Penn, MIT, Duke, Harvard, Northwestern, Brown, Georgetown, William & Mary, Columbia, Stanford, Rice, Villanova, Yale, Caltech, Vanderbilt, Cornell

Furthermore, you have convinced me that I should always caveat my statements with a view to the fairness of said statements to schools like Berkeley and Michigan.  For instance, if I were to say that William & Mary is the second oldest college in the U.S. after Harvard, I should be compelled to also say that Berkeley and Michigan might have been older than William & Mary if only they had been located in a colony or state that formed earlier.

Lastly, you have convinced me that there can only be one view of Williamsburg -- that of a boring cesspool that spawns unhappy W&M alumni who for some reason willingly give back to their detested alma mater.  No other view can be acceptable.  Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder and variety is not the spice of life.

I hope this post provides evidence that my reading comprehension is showing slight signs of improvement.[/quote]

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