The Bottom Line

As a graduating senior, I’ve been endlessly hounded to “donate to the Penn Fund!” since the fall. The University as a whole has also been in the midst of a highly-publicized $3.5 billion capital campaign, which has been doing well, despite the economic conditions a majority of Penn alums are currently facing.

University funding is indeed a strange animal in economics. To paraphrase then-Lehigh University president, and former Penn Engineering dean, Gregory Farrington in his presentation to my Governor’s School class, “We call up our alumni and ask them for money, and they give it to us without expecting anything in return! No other for-profit business organization has this kind of economic model.” Granted, the alumni get a tax deduction for the amount they donate, but generally, the only thing donors get is that warm and fuzzy altruistic feeling that comes from “doing a good deed.” However, this feeling hardly puts food on the table or pays the bills. Read more…

Uncategorized admissions, alumni, capital campaign, donations, freakonomics, penn fund