What’s in a name? $225 million:

The University of Pennsylvania has received a $225 million gift, the largest in its history, from Raymond G. Perelman and his wife, Ruth, for its medical school, which will be renamed the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

“I look at it as Penn Medicine gave me a gift,” Mr. Perelman said. “They offered me an opportunity to have my name on one of the best medical schools in the country.”

My first thought upon reading this was to wonder why Washington’s many billionaires are such a bunch of cheapskates. Just imagine the “Paul Allen School of Medicine,” the “Jeff Bezos Library,” the “Steve Ballmer Academy of Cosmetology” and so on. If just a handful of our state’s many billionaires each chipped in $225 million, our higher education funding problem would be solved, right?

Well, not exactly. For as stunningly generous as the Perelmans’ gift is, $225 million is only a drop in the bucket when it comes to the cost of operating a top notch university. In fact, it represents only 6.4 percent of Penn’s seven-year $3.5 billion capital fund drive, now at $3.1 billion with 19 months left to go, and established as a permanent endowment, it will only generate enough income to increase the renamed medical school’s financial aid by about 20 percent.

To put this in a local perspective, this nearly quarter of a billion dollar donation wouldn’t even amount to half the $600 million dedicated just to financial aid in Washington state’s new and greatly diminished biennial budget. And it’s only a fraction of the $3.1 billion 2010 operating budget for the University of Washington alone. So when the governor’s Higher Education Task Force recommended addressing skyrocketing tuition prices by raising a billion dollar endowment from private donors, I couldn’t help but shrug. Higher education is an obligation that is simply too big and too critical to our economy to be left in the hands of private benefactors. Only the state has the resources to assure broad access to a quality college education.

So while our state’s wealthy can and should do more to fund higher education, I’d rather see it come in the form of them paying their fare share of state taxes, rather than in one of those giant, ceremonial checks.

10 replies on “Philanthropy Can’t Solve Our State’s Higher Education Funding Crisis”

  1. Paul Allen has already paid a buttload of money for the UW libraries, including a whole new library attached to Suzzallo. But point taken.

  2. @1 the cool part of donating it is it’s a tax writeoff.

    I donate money to arts and universities, and write it off too, just at a larger percentage than Bill or Paul does.

  4. Don’t forget Mary Gates Hall either, plus Bill Gates Sr. being on the Board of Regents and the University’s working with/funding by the Gates Foundation. They’re plenty involved.

  7. Just imagine the “Paul Allen School of Medicine,” the “Jeff Bezos Library,”

    i’m pretty sure bezos imagines that every day, though not with his name on it. in fact, i believe that he is battling google for complete library takeover.

  8. Paul Allen has stolen more money from WA taxpayers than he’s ever given to philanthropy. Really bad example. I’m no Gates fan, but their record is infinitely better. Overlake Hospital Medical Center boasts a massive plaque thanking the Ballmer family….

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