Priorities are subjective. there’s no need to imply that OP is somehow immature because he wants his college experience to be more enjoyable. Perhaps if SHU did focus on enhancing the experience of its’ students, that 8% would be more like 18%.
Opinion: SHU Killing Alumni Donation Rates
- Thread starter g0pirates
- Start date
theres a lot more to say about student engagement outside of what the OP mentioned.
Classic case of boomers saying no one should care about anything other than their education.
Important to add context here, our largest donation campaign each year has just over 2k donors (which most likely included non-alumni) while as a university we have over 100k living alumni. Those are atrocious conversion rates.
That Bayley Society portion cites a 9% increase in members who give at that 1k rate or above, what does that mean without the context. For all we know it’s 9 more people after having a 100 last year.
All of what the OP has included here is relevant, I graduated in 09 and over half my Boland floor freshman year transferred out by the end of the school year. Negative student experience is not going to equate donations especially when you are charging 50k for tuition.
I’ve been told by the development office that it is. But since I graduated in 77 perhaps I’m misremembering. It certainly is no higher.
I disagree. No known correlation between good times and higher giving. There is a high correlation between quality of education and absolute value of degree. Hence the high giving rates at schools with the highest academic standards and rigor.
That said, I don’t disagree that the college experience could be better.
do you think the student experience might have changed in the last 46 years? perhaps it deserves a listen
another area of much needed improvement. i dont think a seton hall degree got me anywhere another degree couldnt go. certainly didnt offer the networking other schools that my friends went to offered.
would you say a shu degree is better than one from penn st, virginia tech, fordham?
I would not say that. We are who we are. Our fate was set many decades ago. The school has made good progress but to survive we adopted admission policies that gives us a lesser reputation than the schools you names.
It wasn’t great then. So do I wish I had gone elsewhere? Sometimes. But I didn’t. And notwithstanding the less than spectacular “college experience “ I received a good education which served me well.
I want the school to be better for future students than it was for me. So I focus on the good from my years at SHU and donate. I also take heart that the school has better leadership today than it has had in a number of years.
Let me ask this of you who choose not to donate: so what charities do you support? I suspect few if any.
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I’ve been somewhat critical of the university in this thread, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t also have a good experience. My earlier posts on this thread were more about not gulping down public relations nonsense put out by the school.
My experience was also probably not typical as compared to what many others did. It wasn’t traditional, at least. I left school and had a rather protracted “spring break” before returning with a different approach.
Times have changed I guess. Fraternities flourished during my 4 years (‘68 grad). Concerts were ok. Sammy Davis Jr., Bob Hope, Tony Bennett, Judy Garland, Temptations, and Four Tops to name a few. Each drew more than 50 attendees. (All were standing room only). Proximity to NYC helped in getting some of the acts on campus.
Facts - Based on US News & World Report (2021):
SHU ranks 8 of 11 in the Big East with an 11% average alumni giving rate. Ahead of UConn (8%), DePaul (6%), and StJ (4%).
However, UConn has 18.5k current undergrads, StJ has 15k undergrads, and DePaul has 14.2k undergrads.
So we have a higher % but get less total donations than all of those institutions.
All the schools ahead of us are at 14%, 15%, 21%, 29% for alumni giving rates.
The only giving % I'm truly surprised by is UConn.
Using simple math UConn after 4 years graduates about 75,000 students and at an 8% rates gets about 6,000 of those individuals to donate. SHU gets about 25,000 graduates after 4 years and about 2,750 of those graduates will then donate. Big difference in numbers.
Using the rough amounts of undergrads and giving %. Providence and Creighton may be the only schools with a small donation base than SHU.
SHU ranks 8 of 11 in the Big East with an 11% average alumni giving rate. Ahead of UConn (8%), DePaul (6%), and StJ (4%).
However, UConn has 18.5k current undergrads, StJ has 15k undergrads, and DePaul has 14.2k undergrads.
So we have a higher % but get less total donations than all of those institutions.
All the schools ahead of us are at 14%, 15%, 21%, 29% for alumni giving rates.
The only giving % I'm truly surprised by is UConn.
Using simple math UConn after 4 years graduates about 75,000 students and at an 8% rates gets about 6,000 of those individuals to donate. SHU gets about 25,000 graduates after 4 years and about 2,750 of those graduates will then donate. Big difference in numbers.
Using the rough amounts of undergrads and giving %. Providence and Creighton may be the only schools with a small donation base than SHU.
Can you please cite your sources? You sound like you have buyer's remorse, and that's a shame. It's nice to have input from a current student, but it reads like something I would have posted 25 years ago: little perspective, scorched-earth, and naming names (which I'm not sure I would have even done).
I will agree that the Village's relationship with SHU is a problem for social life (as it was when I was there). They used to get big names for entertainment in the past, not sure what the issue is there -- but there are also tons of options, and NYC a short train ride away.
Hard to imagine complaining about the dorm/cohabitating rules at a diocesan University -- there are probably ways around that, too, for the enterprising students.
Count me as one who got a lot more than he put into the University, and I didn't want to be there, commuting, in the first place. In the end, I had a great time, and wouldn't change anything -- and the campus was a dump then, compared to what it is now. Part of it was to be lucky enough to be in the same class as Terry Dehere.
@SHUSA It's amazing to me that you continue to post here. You've made it clear that you hated SHU from the get-go, have continuously killed the school and coaching staff for years, and still call yourself a "fan." You're like Bobbie Solo with a job.
Thank you for providing concrete facts.
Another thing that probably hurts SHU in this department: to its credit, it draws its student population from a much less affluent group than many other schools (and probably has a higher number of first-in-family college grads, etc.). Here's some numbers from a 2017 NYT study that analyzed the income of parents of students at various schools.
| STUDENTS FROM ... | THE TOP 1% ($630K+) | BOTTOM 60% (<$65K) | |
| 1. | Washington University in St. Louis | 21.7 | 6.1 |
| 2. | Colorado College | 24.2 | 10.5 |
| 3. | Washington and Lee University | 19.1 | 8.4 |
| 4. | Colby College | 20.4 | 11.1 |
| 5. | Trinity College (Conn.) | 26.2 | 14.3 |
| 6. | Bucknell University | 20.4 | 12.2 |
| 7. | Colgate University | 22.6 | 13.6 |
| 8. | Kenyon College | 19.8 | 12.2 |
| 9. | Middlebury College | 22.8 | 14.2 |
| 10. | Tufts University | 18.6 | 11.8 |
| 12. | Georgetown University | 20.8 | 13.5 |
| 24. | Villanova University | 15.0 | 12.4 |
| 74. | Providence College | 8.6 | 13.8 |
| 106. | Creighton University | 6.8 | 15.3 |
| 110. | Marquette University | 7.0 | 16.1 |
| 134. | Xavier University | 5.5 | 16.8 |
| 162. | Butler University | 5.0 | 18.0 |
| 265. | DePaul University | 4.2 | 32.8 |
| 327. | University of Connecticut | 2.1 | 23.1 |
| 431. | Seton Hall University | 1.9 | 31.6 |
| 764. | Saint John's University (N.Y.) | <1 | 47.8 |
That list shows that SHU has stayed true to her mission.
Repole must be the most successful (and one of few) grads from SJU ever
....
He's the 1% and the "n" of one.Repole must be the most successful (and one of few) grads from SJU ever
So this would mean Pitino is counting essentially on one guy to bankroll the team to success ….yet we have twice as many top 1% families and we are screwed.
Bottom line is if schools like SHU want to swim in this pool, there is a market rate you will have to pay. You just need leadership and creativity.
Most recent grads won’t donate because college degrees have become increasingly more meaningless while also becoming extremely more expensive.
And on top that, simple cost of living is thru the roof the last 15 years and isn’t going to get better. Any additional income somebody has is going towards a vacation or a car or other personal items.
Long gone are the days of a single college degree running a household with additional play money. People were more giving back in the day when a college degree meant something and it gave a sense of pride to call yourself a graduate.. now it’s just something you do after high school because society says so..
There’s too much going on in the world and little reason to give back when you’re probably still paying $400-800 per month on your original loans..
Some of you posters probably had $400 per month mortgages for 3 bedroom houses. Now that’s your car bill, gasoline bill, student loan bill, phone+ internet+tv bill..
Before you attack me, I’m not some Gen Z’er.. I’ve paid off my student loans from a different less expensive school. I’m just stating what I think are facts
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you can be a fan without loving everything about something. in fact you can be a fan and hate most things. why do Lions fans go to games?
generally, the staff at shu across the board has been terrible. ive always reaped praise of pat lyons who is one of the few that has done an amazing job. its true i hated willard. is there any chance we had hurley if we didnt hold on to willard for so long?
i think a lot more shu students have buyers remores compared to other schools. but oh well probably best not to listen. i dont know how many other alumni have to explain to people what their university is, but its much more than i expected.
Ken Roberts Productions, I remember those. My two favorites were The Byrds and Donovan.
I liked The Supremes, Johnny Mathis and The Four Seasons.
This is true for most private universities but I am amazed why a child (or parents) take on a financial burden when there are more economical options as well as commuting versus on campus living.
That’s not really true. Every generation has to budget. Shame on the parents for not reinforcing this with their children.
Giving has more to do with connecting with a sense of community, whether that be college, church, your community, etc. All of those connections are in decline.
Once again, shame on the parents and child for taking out loans and something that was well beyond their means.
Lol…I should show you the budget ledger my wife and I kept in the first five years after we married. We also didn’t have $1,000 smart phones that we “had to have” in our pocket.
Good for you. I do find humor in some of the sense of the entitlement that I read in many of these posts.
Where was the entitlement? You are the arrogant one. Your response oozes “better than thou vibes” and you are entirely out of touch with reality. And I’d like to say something with more vigor but I’ll be better.
Lol…my point which you completely missed, is that every generation has its challenges and I gave reasons why giving back has declined (not only with education). You were the one pontificating about how in previous generations it was easier to give, which is totally false.
I'd encourage you to take a look at price changes of rent, higher education, food, childcare, medical care, etc as a percentage of median income over the past 20 years.
I'm demonstrating that disposable income has dropped dramatically for the median American over the past 20 years.
It depends what you call disposable income. People choose to save less now. That’s been proven through the pandemic.
Just the past almost two and a half years! Just look at the prices of gas and food. When prices almost double, especially in such a short time, it doesn’t leave a lot of disposable cash to just spend as you wish. Sad but true.
SHU came through! First real concert in a while. This group is popular, a step in the right direction.
This makes me feel so old
I definitely disagree, though I hope to be wrong eventually! Would love to see campus life improve over time.
One solid concert doesn’t suddenly erase the other points I made about different aspects of campus life. But SHU’s gotta start somewhere! We students are excited for once - you should’ve seen how embarrassingly low the turnout was last spring.
Gotta love the audacity of a person sharing first hand observations of why their peers are not supporting something as much as they are and the collective response is effectively "you're wrong, even if you're not wrong anyone who shares your priorities is an idiot, and even if they're not idiots we don't care to do anything about it and we'll just go without their support." Hazard zet forward, or something.
