KennesawBasketball Wrote:Let's say 1/4 of each's school base gives $50 a year to help out the school. That would be $62,500 (12,500 students graduated over that period of time x $50)...Mercer would take in $18,500 a year (3,750 graduates x $50). Again multiply that times 10 years and Kennesaw just brought in over half a million with those estimates ($625,000), while Mercer doesn't even bring in a third of that (185,000).

Not trying to knock your scenario, but a few comments...

- A 25% giving rate of even $50 is absurdly high. Even the best law schools in the country struggle to have an alumni giving rate of 25%, much less large undergraduate schools.

- The private schools often develop stronger alumni giving rates because the alumni likely feel tied to the school because of its small size and residential nature. On the other hand, large public schools like Kennesaw, Georgia St., and even UCF are viewed to some degree as a commodity - "I got my degree, great. Now it's time to move on." Because of the commuter nature of many large public schools + the commodity feel because of the large size, it's much harder to build alumni loyalty.

- Private schools are much, much, much more reliant on their endowment and fundraising than public schools. There's little point in comparing a public school's endowment to a private school's, because that doesn't show how much money they actually have to spend each year, because it ignores the state contribution to the public school. Mercer may well have $200mn, but they only spend the interest on that each year...they're not going to take $10mn out of the endowment to fund scholarship football.

We in CUSA tell Rice the same thing...use of some of that $5 billion endowment to build yourself a proper football stadium and other top notch facilities. But ultimately that's academic money, and they're not going to lob off $75 million to build a nice new stadium, even though that money could just as well be lost in the AD's sofa.

Also, any thoughts on Savannah State? The MEAC is not going to take them. The geography is good, but it's very true that they are simply not D-1 quality in most areas. However, given the geography, does anyone think taking a flyer on them and giving them a chance might be worthwhile?

We will see what happens with regards to endowments. CWG and Citrus make some good points. My experience suggest otherwise (I attended a small private institution whose endowment was consistently dwarfed by larger university schools in the state). I am by no means suggesting that Mercer is going to fall in giving, just that Kennesaw is going to catch up. CWG...didn't mean to offend you or your school, just giving my opinion.

As far as Savannah State - there school needs a lot of work before they would be considered for the ASun in my opinion. Kennesaw and the other DII schools that have moved up all bring something pretty good to the table...I just don't see that with Savannah State. I could be wrong though...we will see.