(04-19-2013 02:20 PM)rufus Wrote: I'm going to disagree a bit with that statement. People who make $500,000 to $1 million do obviously include surgeons and lawyers, and without a law school or med school, JMU is not going to have these kinds of donors to the same extent as some larger schools. But that income range also includes people like partners at accounting and consulting firms, SVP/EVP-level executives at large companies, and a mix of Wall Street types. With JMU's business programs, we have quite a number of alums that fall into those buckets, in addition the our alums that go into law and medicine.
If JMU had a law school, it wouldn't be a good one. This would literally be pissing tax money down a rat hole. Medical school is more interesting, but most students would go on to different schools rather than repeat the experience.
Either way JMU doesn't need a law school or medical school to raise its endowment.
I'd be curious how many partners of big accounting or consulting firms came from JMU. My guess is not many (if any) but would expect this to change over the next 20 years.
The guy I know from high school who is kissing 7 figures in Wall Street went to Harvard then Columbia. JMU is a good school, but we aren't exactly asking for perfect SAT scores.
Our best bet is to get a little from a lot of people. We have to change the culture by engaging the alumni. Sports is an easy way to do this, but we have a long way to go.
Can anyone make a multi dimensional graft to chart endowments by time? I'd like to look at factors like public or private, age of university, size of student body, number of living alumni, admissions criteria, athletic conference, and dollars spent of research. I would guess there is strong correlation between endowment size and these factors. If you factor in time and stock market performance things get really interesting.