CMU's Inspire Innovation capital campaign, which ran from July 2002 to August 2013, raised $832 million, averaging about $75 million per year in actual cash. Last year, the university raised $144 million and this year, Suresh said the amount raised is expected to match, if not exceed, last year's total.
6 comments:
I totally agree with what Suresh is saying about attracting the brightest students. I know numerous kids who were thinking about coming here after they had been accepted but got much better offers from schools that were not as prestigious as Carnegie Mellon. Not to say that they are wasting their talent but some of them were upset because logistically it did not make sense at the time to invest that heavy price tag that CMU has. I am happy thought that Suresh is aware of the problem. One of the most important factors of a university is to have motivated students who want to make the university better. The type of students that do that are at the top of their class and want to push themselves. Right now though we are losing them. This lends itself to a larger issue of the value that America currently puts on education but I think I will save that discussion for another day.
I find it very interesting our president is trying to attract the best and brightest minds to our community to help create a heavily enriching envirment for our school. What I don’t agree with is the amount of money going into increase our athletic facilieties. What we have now is fine and I don’t see why we need more. We are a division 3 school more focused on our academics anyway. I don’t want to see this school become a sport school. While yes sports do bring in more money which can help offer students who need it more scholarships but at the end of the day not everyone who works in sports in going to get a job it’s a heavily competitive world and a lot of ones future is devoted to something that may not just happen. I think what the president needs to consider is that if he wants to increase the donation given by alumnus he needs to start a campaign of improving the lives of the students here now because at the end of the day we will be the ones who should be giving back the most as a thank you for all the opportunity this school brought to us.
Perhaps this is just the bitter upperclassman in me coming out, but I think prior classes (rather, those who were in classes before the class of 2019) should see the benefits of such financial gains. While I am sure there are elements missing from my understanding, it seems as though future generations of CMU students are benefitting from these increased presidential scholarships, while older classes get slapped with higher tuition rates. It's frustrating to be part of a class that cannot benefit from these scholarships traditionally granted to incoming Freshmen.
I do realize, soapbox aside, that the increases in funding do impact us in the form of resources, facilities, and grants. I am glad I attend a school so focused on staying relevant, and supplying us with the best. But I do have to agree with Nikki. Updating the sports facilities would be one thing if we were a sports-minded school that was being held back by dated facilities. But I think we are simply not an athletically inclined school, and I think a good portion of the money going to facility updates would be better spent elsewhere.
Suresh is exactly right when he says that the key to CMU remaining a competitive top school is increasing our financial aid capability. His statement: “Many students what to come to CMU, but decide to go elsewhere because of tuition or other financial concerns” is incredibly true. I personally have 4 friends that have decided to go to other universities because of their financial situation, or because they were offered more money to go somewhere else. My idyllic view of higher education, and I know this isnt true, but I would like it to be, is that anyone who has the desire and the ability to make their own education should be able to financially. It kills me that a huge component of higher education in America is the “Big Education” business.
It’s really amazing that Carnegie Mellon University has raised that much money in so few years. It speaks to the dedication of the alumni and there success in their fields. It also speaks to the faith that the regular person has in our school- the people who are not alumni but have the funds to help our school grow. The article detailed that these funds are going to the Tepper Quad project and the fitness enhancements you can see in the UC pool room. It seems like all of this money, nearly one billion dollars, is going to be used for construction on campus. It is always important to be expanding our school to attract new and driven students. This makes me wonder, however, why more of the money is not being put aside for scholarships to come here. I know many people who had to decide on different schools because they did not get the financial aid they needed to go here.
Yeah, that's great and all, but where is the money for Purnell 2.0!? Jokes aside, I really am impressed with how much money CMU is able to raise in such a short amount of time. I certainly do agree with the sentiment that we should allocate more money towards scholarships so that we can attract top ranking students that may not necessarily be financially capable of going to CMU. That being said, I also think it would be swell if CMU could engage in some inward looking cost cutting measures. Perhaps I sound hypocritical in wanting expensive measures on one hand and a lowered tuition on the other. Maybe what I am looking for is a more publicly transparent budgeting review process. If CMU published a report (maybe they already do?) of all the ways they have tried to cut costs, then I don't think I would feel so bad about the high cost of tuition, or tuition raises for that matter.
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