Education

 

 

 

Fierce Competition for Dollars
When the going gets tough, the tough go fund raising

he campaign season is under way,

but more than one president is out on
the stump. The nation’s colleges and uni-
versities are vying for some $5 billion
in gifts from corporations, foundations
and private citizens. Bowdoin College in
Maine kicks off a $56 million fund-raising
drive this fall. The University of Southern
California is gearing up for a $500 million
campaign. Another California university,
Pepperdine, is pushing its $100 million
“Wave of Excellence” effort. Such fund
raising is nothing new; private colleges
and universities have been passing the hat
for centuries.

 
 

AEGEL E
PRIVATE / a

 

 

private sectors. Today 78% of all college
students attend public institutions. Even
though the total cost of educating a stu-
dent is roughly the same, public tuition,
aided by state and federal taxes, averages
$1,126 a year, vs. $5,016 at private institu-
tions. Notes Gary Quehl, president of the
Council of Independent Colleges: “Amer-
ican higher education is the only national
industry that requires one sector [private]
to compete with the other [public] at more
than a 4-to-1 economic disadvantage.”

In some states conflicts are sharpen-
ing. Public university presidents in Ohio
openly opposed a new program that gives

   

 

James Zumberge: “We're competing for
the same dollar, but if my predictions are
right, those dollars are going to continue to
increase.’ He has a point. Voluntary giv-
ing to colleges is up 6% over last year. Wil-
liam Orme, an executive of the General
Electric Foundation, agrees that corporate
giving will go up “once the issues are rec-
ognized.” Pepperdine President Howard
White complacently notes, “There is no
competition among lighthouses.” Yet not
every college has a 1 million-candlepower
beacon, and small private liberal arts col-
leges are the most likely to be left in the
dark. Says Dennis Griffin, a vice president
of St. Olaf College in Minnesota: “Private
education is a sort of endangered species.”

Cooperation may be the only way to
avert a civil war in higher education. Last
year Chancellor William Danforth of pri-
vate Washington University in St. Louis

FLUA “D1aVHSIN AG SAIL YOd WOLLYHISATY

    

 

Public institutions are another matter.
They still rely primarily on the revenues
of state taxpayers, but now they are also
tapping into sources once considered the
preserve of private colleges. The Univer-
sity of California, Los Angeles, will
inaugurate an unprecedented drive for
$200 million in November. The Universi-
ty of Georgia, which celebrates its 200th
anniversary next year, is wrapping up a
first-time campaign that has raised $63
million, including $1 million from Coca-
Cola. The University of Illinois enlisted
Alumnus John Chancellor to star in a 19-
city teleconference as part of an effort
that has raised $109 million. Observes
Hayden Smith, senior vice president of
the Council for Financial Aid to Educa-
tion: “Competition between public and
private higher-education institutions is
getting fierce.” Cornell University Presi-
dent Frank Rhodes concurs: “We have
seen what was once a more or less friendly
rivalry between public and independent
institutions degenerate into an unhealthy
scramble for resources.”

The reasons are clear: the number of
18- to 22-year-olds is rapidly declining;
some demographers predict a drop of 25%
over the next decade. Furthermore, 30
years ago college students were about
evenly divided between the public and

 

$500 to each Ohio student attending a pri-
vate college. Since the 1960s, New York
State has granted money to private institu-
tions and students attending them. Yet
while discussing assistance guidelines last
year, presidents from both sectors dis-
agreed so vociferously on the formula that
the meeting dissolved. An agreement
worked out in March now provides more
state aid to students at private institutions.

A‘ college presidents move away from
genteel competition, the old rules are
being bent out of shape. Some leaders
in the private sector, including the
Rev. James Finlay, recently retired presi-
dent of Fordham University, have begun
calling for a sliding tuition scale for state
universities. Their argument is succinct:
Why should a student from an affluent
family pay only $1,126 to attend State U.
when it costs the taxpayer much more to
provide an education? Some public insti-
tutions, until private colleges complained,
were trying to compete on the basis of
cost. One ad for the State University of
New York read, “SUNY’s tuition costs less
for four years than some colleges charge
for one.”

Optimists insist that there are enough
bucks and bodies to go around. Says Uni-
versity of Southern California President

 

and the president of the University of
Missouri brought together 40 college and
university presidents to try to head off
skirmishes. They had plenty of motiva-
tion; in their home state, aid to higher
education has failed to keep pace with in-
flation in the past decade. Says Danforth:
“This is a long-range problem, and we
thought it would be good for people in
both sectors to talk about how to serve our
institutions and the state together.” In
Pennsylvania, where there is little strife
between the two sectors, the Pennsylvania
Association of Colleges and Universities
has been lobbying the legislature on be-
half of both public and private institutions
for the past decade. The Exxon Educa-
tion Foundation gave a grant this year to
the Association of Governing Boards of
Universities and Colleges, a group of pub-
lic and private trustees, to explore similar
cooperative programs. At stake, ultimate-
ly, is the survival of a uniquely American
system of higher education that combines
the vitality and access of public schools
with the excellence and experimentation
of private institutions. Says Cornell’s
Rhodes: “Our dual system forms an edu-
cation enterprise which is rightly the envy
of the world.” —By Ellie McGrath. Reported by
Dorothy Ferenbaugh/New York and Barbara
Kraft/Los Angeles

 

 

TIME, SEPTEMBER 24, 1984