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The Impact of Higher Tuition Fees on Donations
Alumni donations have empowered many students to pursue their goals and define their vision with self-assurance. These donations have played a very important role in education. Alumni donation keeps most universities to their tradition and mission and therefore they tend to be true to their values and vision. Since, colleges are committed to pursuing excellence in student achievement, resources, curricula and programs. Extra funding from alumni gives them the opportunity to offer educational chance to all children from different family background. Most importantly these donations challenge students to work hard and become fully integrated in university programs. Gifts provide help in sustaining the university’s legacy and thus maintaining value for students who follow in alumni footsteps. The culture of giving will also be maintained by students who received direct funding from the gifts. Today, the tuition fees in most institutions have escalated due to the need for modern learning equipments and technology in the learning institutions. This has adversely affected the alumni donation. The alumni donations can no longer sustain the objective of paying for education of as many poor students as possible. The number of students the donations can support has reduced significantly. If for example the alumni donations in certain institutions managed to pay fully the tuition fees for 30 students. The tuition fees before the escalation was 800 dollars annually. When the tuition fees in this institution is increased to 1200 dollars annually it means that some students in the donation programme will be left out. Thus the 30 students doing programme can no longer be sustained. The donation programme requires a total of 24,000 dollars when paying tuition fees fully 30 students when the fees 800 dollars. When the tuition fees are increased to 1200 dollars then to pay for 30 students the programme requires 96,000 dollars. This translates to 3 times the initial amount. This is such large figure and if the donor financial programme can only raise the initial amount 24,000 dollars, then the programme can only mange to pay full tuition fees for only 20 students. 10 students in the objective of the alumni funding programme will be left out. Thus 33% of the students in the initial programme are left out. The programme may carry on with the supporting t30 student which happens in most of the cases but this means that programme can no longer pay fully for the tuition fees. The amount that each student thus receives is at least 33% less. This also defeats the objective of the alumni donor programme which aims to reduce the cost the cost of education making it affordable to the poor students. Some poor students may not be able to raise even the 33% to clear the balance. The alumni donations are gifts which the former students from institutions pledge to give to the school freely. Thus since they are free gifts given it is not possible for school to increase the amount raised from the gifts meaning that consequence of raising tuition fees still cuts out a number of students from the alumni donation.
The first recommendation in such circumstances when alumni donations sustainability is decreased is that the management should come up with more stringent criteria of selecting the student that would benefits from such donation. The management should ensure that the student to benefit are needy and do deserve to be given financial support. If non deserving students access the donation then the very aim of the alumni donations which is to support the poor students is defeated. These poor students could further be categorised according to their different levels of need. The very need student could then be fully sponsored while those who are not badly off could be given a 50% sponsor. To keep the students motivated to work hard as the prior intention of the donation is the students may be encouraged by giving a donation proportionate to the student performance. The students that display excellence in their academics could be sponsored fully while those not doing could be given a 40% sponsor. This encourages the student to work harder so as to receive a better gift that would enable them to pay their fees.
To raise more money from alumni donations I would recommend that the students should be encouraged when they still in the school to develop a culture of giving back to their school. The fact that tuition fees is rapidly skyrocketing means that raising more money for the donation is an obvious subject. The purpose of a donation is to help the student to raise the fees and thus if the fees is raised then it means that the number of needy students increases as some who could raise the fees before it was raised are no longer in position to raise it if it is increased. The students can be trained to develop culture of giving while they re still in school for the future of the programme. They can be done through creating awareness of the existence of such a programme and its importance in touching people lives. Those students already receiving donation can be encouraged to do the same in future. This is simply looking into the future. Alumni and friends have the opportunity to give gifts no matter the size. When these gifts are put together including the ones from other benefactors, there will be a significant change in the education system and also in the physical appearance of the college. Gifts from alumni represent the future of the college and more so on students who directly utilise them.
I would also recommend that the alumni donations should be given to more students in smaller portions than to a small group of student in larger portions. This ensures that a maximum number of students are encouraged to acquire education. Sometimes the donations would work to motivate students if they are not really needy and thus giving small portions to a large number would encourage more students.
