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Alumni economics
Alumni with kids are 13 percentage points more likely than alumni without kids to give in any year. The tendency to give rises slowly—by three more percentage points total—through kids' early teens. At about age 14, as mom and dad see their kid's algebra and composition grades, they decide whether he or she will apply to the alma mater.
Here is much more.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 6, 2007 at 11:53 AM in Education | Permalink
Comments
It would be interesting if someone who works in an admissions office or who has insight into how the admissions process works would comment whether the office takes into account donorship at low and mid levels.
At the extreme end it would be difficult not to notice a building named after a donor. I would think it also more likely in cases of large gifts that the Dean/Provost personally would have a word with Admissions to pay extra consideration to the donor's legacy.
Posted by: fustercluck at Jul 6, 2007 12:16:29 PM
As a relatively new alumni myself, I find this sort of mindset completely absurd.
I like my school, but I just spent many thousands of dollars on tuition; they're not getting another goddamn cent. I don't care if their football team beats the rival football team. If my kids want to go there, that's fine, but I cannot imagine *forcing* them to.
Maybe it's just me.
Posted by: Bergamot at Jul 6, 2007 1:09:46 PM
Couldn't this be because, on average:
1) alumni with kids will be older then alumni without kids
2) older alumni will have worked worked and be earning more and have higher average net wealth
3) people with higher wealth donate more to charitable cuases and/or see their schooling as having a more imortant role in their current wealth?
Posted by: Pablo at Jul 6, 2007 1:23:12 PM
Correlation <> causality. Is a better explanation perhaps that college graduates probably tend to have kids at 25-30, and most people's careers really start to hit stride (and people start thinking about giving) when they are 40-50? I wonder if giving to charities/religious institutions also picks up at 40-50.
For the delta between donors with and without kids, is it as likely that people who have kids "because that is what you do" are also more inclined to donate to the alma mater because "that's what you do"?
Finally, trying to bribe Junior's way into college is probably a very poor bet for most parents. I'd guess this is true whether you are an alumnus of an Ivy (fewer alumni but probably most of them are rich) or a large State school (more alumni, but with a large sample size it is probable that many of them will be MUCH righer than you are). Perhaps this strategy might work if you are aan alum of a small liberal arts college somewhere, although the risk you run with the strategy in any case is the risk that the admissions committee is dominated by resentful Marxists who might want to penalize Moneybag's kid unless the donation is truly large.
Bergamot: I used to feel the same way, especially after the Board of Regents passed a retroactive tuition increase my last semester and I got a bill in April (imagine a restaurant trying this halfway through your plate of ravioli). In time, though, your memories of the nickel-and-dime fees, third world professors, and the uber-effective parking ticket brigade will be replaced by happy memories of you at your physical prime, when you had all the freedom and few of the consequences of adult life...I think they plan it that way...
Posted by: John Galt at Jul 6, 2007 1:33:40 PM
the original study controls for all the effects people mention her. the authors estimate the altruistic part of alumni giving at 51% and the rest to improve the odds of their legacy admits.
Posted by: sa at Jul 6, 2007 2:11:41 PM
As an alumni with a long memory, they won't be getting a dime from me.
Posted by: Tia at Jul 6, 2007 2:27:42 PM
Pablo and John Galt, note that in the article, the effect reverses after the kids either (a) reach the age and don't apply to the college or (b) graduate from the college.
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