Education: Industry to the Rescue

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In Cleveland last week a group of presidents and trustees assembled from small colleges all over Ohio set out on a special mission. During the next few days, they will call on 150 local businessmen, and for each they had the same appeal. Its gist: Ohio's private colleges need the help of Ohio industry if they are to survive.

The task force of presidents and trustees actually represents 19 different campuses.* Their Cleveland calls are only the start of a statewide fund-raising campaign to meet the $1,000,000 deficit the colleges expect this year. But far more important than their strategy is their target. Like deficit-ridden private colleges throughout the U.S., they are seeking help from the last great reservoir of wealth outside the Federal Government—the private corporations.

The Battle for Dollars. Last week the battle for that wealth was being fought far beyond Ohio's borders. The University of Denver had recently installed ex-President Albert N. Williams of Western Union as a special non-salaried adviser on getting and using business gifts. In Michigan, five small church-related campuses (Adrian, Alma, Hillsdale, Hope and Emmanuel Missionary) had already banded together to raise $500,000 from industrialists. In Indiana eleven more campuses had combined forces for the same purpose. Last week President A.A. Lemieux of Seattle University was trying to set up a similar foundation in Washington.

Over the past few years, such efforts have brought promising results. This year Johns Hopkins University was able to raise $650,000 from Baltimore businessmen, and nearby Goucher College (for women) was doing almost as well. In its 1940 fund-raising campaign Goucher got only $2,500 from industry—1% of what it was after; this year it got $280,000, or 28%. Northwestern University had a similar report: $761,000 in 1950, compared to $89,000 ten years ago.

The University of Pennsylvania has collected $2,250,000 for its development fund from local business and industry since 1948, including such no-strings gifts as $100,000 from Lit Brothers department store.

Even some small campuses are seeing the color of corporate money. Ohio's Wittenberg College has persuaded nearby businesses to finance a series of economics and management classes for their foremen and supervisors. Mills College in California has received $150,000 from corporations—and "that," says President Lynn White Jr., "would have been impossible five years ago."

Strings Attached. In spite of such indications that corporate gifts are rising, U.S. educators in general are still far from rejoicing. U.S. business has only just begun to give, and it is still nowhere near using up its 5% tax deduction for charitable contributions. Manhattan's Commission on Financing Higher Education reported that in 1950 business probably gave $340 million for philanthropic purposes, including gifts to higher education. But that was only seven-tenths of 1% of its total income before taxes.