Contrary to common assumptions, public universities that increase their selectivity do not necessarily find themselves producing graduates who can donate more to their alma mater, according to a new study of such institutions.
But winning on the football field and turning away low-income students does appear to have a financial payoff in terms of alumni giving, a second study of flagship state universities suggests.
Both studies, scheduled to be presented in the coming days at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association, differ from much other research on alumni giving in that they focus on the public sector and examine large numbers of institutions—a sharp contrast from previous studies that have looked at private colleges or single institutions.
The study focused on changes in university selectivity, scheduled to be presented on Monday, was conducted by Sean A. Simone, who did the research as a doctoral student at the University of Maryland at College Park and now works as a postdoctoral policy fellow at the National Center for Education Statistics, and Marvin A. Titus, an assistant professor of higher education at Maryland. The two researchers examined data from 147 public research universities over the course of 11 fiscal years, from 1996-97 through 2006-7. They based their assessments of the institutions' selectivity on the SAT scores of the entering freshman classes of the colleges studied (converting ACT scores to their SAT equivalent where necessary).
The Maryland researchers' study found that, when other factors were taken into account, the SAT scores of incoming classes did not serve to predict the average amount each student donated to their institution after graduating. Becoming more selective did not, in itself, cause the institutions to reap more alumni support.
In a paper describing their study, the researchers say their finding "challenges a major paradigm in the literature regarding the influence of prestige on alumni giving." They also say, however, that because their study examined only public research universities, caution should used in applying their findings to other sectors of higher education or institution types.
A 'Giving Tradition'?
In the other study, scheduled to be discussed at the AERA conference on Sunday, three researchers at the University of Minnesota studied 67 public flagship universities and 23 variables that could explain differences in their rates of alumni-giving participation.
Their analysis failed to find any evidence that some flagships had a "giving tradition" that, in itself, would explain the willingness of their alumni to contribute to their alma mater. Neither did they find evidence that alumni giving to flagship universities was significantly affected by state politics or the amount state governments appropriated to such institutions.
But the researchers—David J. Weerts, director of Minnesota's Postsecondary Education Research Institute, and Thomas Sanford and Olena Glushko, both doctoral students and institute research assistants—did find a negative correlation between low-income enrollments and alumni giving. Simply put, the more Pell Grant recipients a flagship enrolled, the smaller the share of its alumni who donated.
In a paper explaining their study, the researchers said the finding supports the hypothesis "that students of low socioeconomic status are less likely to have the capacity to charitably support their alma mater after graduation." A second possible explanation, they said, may lie in students' inclinations as shaped by their family background. Other research has suggested that wealthier families are more likely than poor ones to pass philanthropic and civic traditions on to their children.
Enrollment size was also found by the study to be negatively correlated with alumni-giving rates. The researchers speculated that this pattern might have two causes: Students at larger institutions tend to be less engaged in college, as a whole, than those at smaller institutions, or larger institutions with a vast number of alumni have a harder time, as a logistical matter, trying to keep all of their alumni involved.
The Minnesota researchers' analysis found a positive correlation between alumni giving and graduation rates. That finding, they said, may simply reflect that those students who are best prepared to complete college tend to come from wealthier backgrounds. It might also be a reflection of the willingness of alumni to "give back" to those institutions where high graduation rates reflect solid academic quality and strong student support.
Winning athletic teams were also found by the study to be positively correlated with alumni generosity. The study found that those flagship institutions with the highest alumni-giving participation in 2004 were the same institutions with football teams that finished in the top 25 in the Associated Press rankings most frequently from 1994 to 2004.
In their paper, the Minnesota researchers caution that, because their study does not look at giving rates over time, people at colleges should not assume that certain tweaks in their policies will automatically lead to higher giving rates. The researchers also note that flagship universities that seek to become more elite in their enrollments for the sake of increasing alumni giving will probably stray from their mission of serving student bodies that reflect the diversity of society.
Comments
1. 22280998 - April 29, 2010 at 03:36 pm
If you separate academic from atheletic giving, what are the results?
2. 22097237 - April 29, 2010 at 04:10 pm
"Winning athletic teams were also found by the study to inspire alumni generosity."
This reads well and is probably common journalistic license, but really the study results say:
"Winning athletic teams were also found to be positively correlated with alumni generosity."
Cause and effect too often end up entangled in readers minds, and some of readers may be in a position to make policy decisions...
3. swish - April 29, 2010 at 04:24 pm
Thanks, 22097237, this is a very good point, and your reminding me of it made me a *little* less depressed.
4. skocpol - April 29, 2010 at 05:33 pm
Based on the minimal information in the article, what was the timing involved? Was giving by all prior alumni compared with current SAT and Pell Grant measures and trends, or was each recent cohort evaluated on its immediate post-graduation giving?
In the former case the good old boys might not like seeing so many non-elite students at "their" football games.
In the latter case, students in the current economic climate may be returning to live in their parent's basements, not yet realizing the importance of donating above and beyond their piles of student loan repayments.
5. pschmidt - April 29, 2010 at 09:27 pm
The second post above makes a good point. I know better than to confuse correlation and causation, and regret making the mistake in my rush to finish the story before catching my flight to Denver to attend the AERA conference. I had the story fixed with correct language as soon as I got to my hotel. My apologies to the authors, whom I owe a coffee or beer when they get here.--Peter Schmidt
6. alanc - April 30, 2010 at 05:46 am
I would be interested to know whether the correlation between student income (as measured in the proportion of students receiving Pell grants) and alumni giving holds up when you control for graduation rates.
The authors speculate "that students of low socioeconomic status are less likely to have the capacity to charitably support their alma mater after graduation," or that such students may simply not have been raised with a tradition of giving.
Both of these are reasonable possibilities, but the reality may simply be that it's harder graduate when you don't have enough money to be able to focus fully on your studies. If attrition rates are much higher among Pell grant recipients (which they likely are, in most places), this could explain their findings.
--More interestingly, if my hypothesis is correct, the problem lends itself to a solution. (Which would be nice, because the two causes the authors propose would not seem amenable to any influence on the part of the university.) More generous financial aid packages and retention support for the poorest students could improve graduation rates -and thus alumni giving. Not only is it the right thing to do, but there might be a good business case for it.
I was also interested to see the use of SAT scores as the (apparently) sole measure of selectivity. I've never worked in admissions, but I was under the impression that high school GPA was a much stronger predictor of future success (indeed, that the SAT was a very weak predictor, at best) and had always assumed that GPA was the primary measure of applicant quality for admissions.
To be sure, it's a lot less standardized than SAT scores, but might it have been a better measure, anyway?
7. haqnoor - April 30, 2010 at 06:52 am
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8. dank48 - April 30, 2010 at 08:17 am
It would be interesting to see whether, granting the correlation between winning football teams and alumni generosity, the giving manages to pay for the football. As a graduate of Southern Indiana Sports, Incorporated, I doubt it, but maybe I'm wrong.
9. uafortsmith - May 03, 2010 at 06:20 am
Thank you for conducting this interesting study. I am also interested in the effect of engagement and donor stewardship on alumni giving. This was my dissertation topic just defended in April and I realized the need for more research on this topic. Weerts research on engagement was a critical piece of my lit review.
10. sibyl - May 03, 2010 at 10:25 am
My experience working with less affluent families suggests to me that those families as a group actually give a higher proportion of their income to charity than middle-class families, but that their philanthropy is channeled through their churches rather than through colleges and large charitable nonprofits. It would be interesting to see whether this impression could be confirmed empirically. If indeed charitable giving is learned at home, and some homes are more likely to give to churches rather than colleges or charitable organizations, then the effect of athletics could be isolated further.
11. sibyl - May 03, 2010 at 10:26 am
I meant for that last phrase to say "...the effect of athletics, and of efforts to improve access, could be isolated further."
12. jungianscholar - May 08, 2010 at 08:57 am
A quantitative study of this nature begs a number of qualitative studies to ask the question, "Why?"
As sibyl notes, many individuals from lower socioeconomic areas may focus their charity to churches, synagogues and temples, or to community focused organizations. Often, many may consider the wholeness of their college/university experience in context of their lives. If I were a minority and never felt accepted or welcome, why would I want to give back? If my experience was an impersonal one, with classes held on TV monitors or in auditoriums with three hundred students per class taught by graduate assistants, why would I think of my education as memorable?
My father was a financially unsuccessful Harvard MBA and our large family grew up on the edge of what we today call the "culture of poverty." I thank him for my life, for my strong interest in reading, critical thinking and early interest in world cultures. He always made a modest contribution annually to Boston College, where he earned his B.S. in Economics and Spanish, but said Harvard already received enough gifts from their generations of affluent alumni.
My son is a Ph.D. student at one of Europe's greatest universities and told me that the school has a football, or what we would call soccer team. They spend nothing that approaches what we do here in the States for athletic programs. The differences between European schools and the schools here in the United States always amaze me.
I would suggest that those interested in this subject conduct some well planned qualitative research using individual interview techniques and open ended questions around why those alumni from the lower socioeconomic areas aren't giving to their schools. Focus groups will often inhibit people from sharing their true thoughts and feelings, hence the one on one interviews. Researchers could also mail out questionnaires. There are many ways to approach this. The answers might be quite interesting.