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Paul Nelson reportingA new report says the number of colleges and universities with billion-dollar endowments has gone up. But does that money trickle down to parents and students paying tuition?
Utah State University had an incredible year when it comes to donations and charitable gifts.
USU President Stan Albrecht said, "First of all, [we had] a gift from Marc and Debbie Bingham. This was a $15 million gift." Plus, USU got a gift from Jon Huntsman Sr. for $26 million and another $25 million from the Emma Eccles Jones Foundation. Albrecht says these funds that were raised are all part of a bigger plan.
"We announced on the third of March of last year a $200-million campaign with a four-year goal. We intended to finish the campaign by December of 2010," he explained.
But, with all this money coming in, is there any chance students and parents could pay less for tuition? "It's not really for the purpose of convincing the [Board of] Regents to do a smaller increase in tuition," Albrecht said.
Albrecht says the school plans to construct new buildings, pay for endowed professors and give some students scholarships with that money. USU isn't the only school that cashed in during 2007.
University of Utah Associate Vice President for Budget and Planning, Paul Brinkman, said, "If you just look at gifts, it would only have been about $110 million."
Brinkman says that school had $88 million in gifts last year. Universities all over seem to be rolling in the dough. USA Today says 76 universities have endowments over $1 billion. Congress has become very interested in these schools.
Brinkman said, "Many of them also charge very high tuitions, and someone has connected the dots there and said, ‘That seems a little odd.'"
Brinkman says public universities can get a huge stipend each year from the state, but private facilities don't have that luxury. "Education, research, taking care of patients. I mean, these are things that are essentially inherently good, and costly," he said.
Brinkman says if the U didn't raise that kind of cash every year, it would have to completely revamp what it could do as a university.
