Akst: College giving that can do more good

Daniel Akst is a member of the Newsday editorial board.

'Alma mater" literally means nurturing mother, but just how far should we carry gratitude?

That's the question raised by news that Yale University, despite a tough economy, just finished raising nearly $4 billion.

The money wasn't needed to stave off foreclosure. On the contrary, as of June 30, 2010, Yale had an endowment of $16.7 billion -- and is using some of the new money for free tuition at its music school.

Yale draws some of the brightest students in the world, young people who would no doubt do well even without a richer Yale. Many come from wealthy families who, under other circumstances, wouldn't be considered worthy targets of philanthropy.

Nassau Community College, by contrast, has no endowment, yet provides crucial job skills for blue-collar students -- plus open access to higher education that could lead to a four-year degree elsewhere. Enrollment has grown since the recession, as it has at most community colleges, including Suffolk County's. Yet government funding hasn't kept pace.

A gift of $4 million, never mind $4 billion, to such an institution would have a huge impact on both the college and its students. Now that a new school year will soon be upon us, maybe it's time to think a little harder about the whole business of alumni giving.

There's no point arguing that giving to Yale is wrong because children are starving in Africa, since on that basis nobody could justifiably use money for any other purpose. We should all do more to help the needy, but if that were the only moral way to spend, few would bother to earn. That's why communism failed.

Besides, education is a worthy target for giving. It enriches everyone, and educational institutions probably make starvation less likely for all. Yet if the goal is to fund education, then why give to Yale or anyplace else already flush with dough?

You can have a much bigger impact at a lesser institution, where your gift would help more students in more need. Indeed, by directing your donation to a more modest school, you can help counteract an accelerating cycle of inequality. Yale produces graduates in law, medicine, business and other lucrative fields, and armed with their gilded credentials, these high-earning alumni fund their alma mater lavishly. Nearly 2,000 donors gave $100,000 or more during Yale's fund drive, and 10 of them gave at least $50 million each.

Local institutions such as Nassau Community College, meanwhile, produce graduates who make a decent living but are in no position to do much for the school that taught them how to handle a cadaver or bombard a tumor with radiation.

If you want to fund a four-year research institution, you should know that Stony Brook University, a major SUNY campus with only a piddling endowment, could really use the money, too.

I'm not naive enough to think people donate to Yale solely out of altruism. Some hope to give their kids or grandkids a leg up on admission. Alumni doubtless enjoy their ongoing connection with the prestigious school, which provides a certain gilt by association. And by enriching Yale, grads can raise the value of their own sheepskin.

Yet donors themselves surely believe they are motivated in large part by charity. And when they write those checks, they are enlisting your money in the cause. That's because donations to nonprofit colleges and universities are tax-deductible, meaning that $1 given to Yale saves an affluent donor perhaps 40 cents in federal and state income taxes -- money that otherwise might have been used for such public purposes as, oh, funding a community college or two. Sounds like the mater -- er, mother -- of all ironies to me.