Five hundred and thirty-nine college educations, especially 539 of America’s brightest youth being pulled out of their low-income backgrounds and given the chance to attend one of the most prestigious universities in the world, seems like an incredible gift. However, a closer analysis of the potential beneficiaries of these 539 four-year full scholarships (made possible by Kenneth Griffin’s recent $150 million donation to Harvard) demonstrates how such a generous donation can be a selfish gift.
An important first note is that the recipients of this new pool of money will not be the poorest students at Harvard; even before this donation, Harvard already guaranteed full scholarships to any family making under $65,000 per year, and that families making up to $150,000 would not have to pay more than ten percent of their income. Consequently, these additional scholarships would be going towards students from families who are already safely in the middle class.
These students, unlike the more indigent around the country, have other options. If Harvard’s near quarter-of-a-million dollar price tag is too high, these students could likely afford their in-state public university. Further, if they are academically gifted enough to be accepted to Harvard, they surely could have gotten an academic scholarship had they looked outside of the Ivy League. In short, even without Griffin’s donation, these students may not get an Ivy League education but they could surely get a quality college education.
Taking a few hundred students who would get a college education anyway and giving them a prestigious college education is quite a small gain given the immense size of the donation. How else could this money be better spent? If educating the poor was the goal, the donation could have been given to a less-endowed university. Take the local public school, the University of Massachusetts, Boston. This same $125 million could have funded 4375 four-year educations at UMass, eight times the money’s potential impact at Harvard.
More importantly, the potential beneficiaries at UMass, if they could not afford an education at their state university, are unlikely to be able to afford any other four-year university. Furthermore, they are significantly less likely to earn academic scholarships than those admitted to Harvard. If Griffin’s donation had been given to UMass, it could have given thousands of in-state students a four-year college education they otherwise would not have gotten. To take the same argument a step further, if the same money was donated to Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, it would have funded 14,775 college educations, whose students could likely not afford any kind of higher education.
Given that this money would have had a much greater impact on the education of the poor if donated to a different academic institution, why would Griffin choose to donate to Harvard? Griffin made the donation out of concern for himself, not for students. Saying “I’m the biggest donor to Bunker Hill Community College” surely would not inspire nearly the same awe from dinner party attendees and the national media as “I have a building at Harvard named after me.” The donation brought Griffin five minutes of fame and a link to the global icon of academic excellence. He chose this prestige over maximizing the good his money did, making his generous 150 million dollar donation nothing more than a very selfish gift.
Correction (2/27/14): The author states that Griffin’s donation will not fund financial aid for those from families making $65,000 or under per year. However, the $125 million of the donation that Griffin set aside for financial aid initiatives will be spent towards fulfilling these existing guarantees.