THREE ADDRESSES ON COLLEGE FINANCES - BENEFACTIONS VS. HIGHER TUITIONS - An Address Delivered at the Annual Dinner of the Broen Alumni Association of New York, February 14, 1929

Sep 21, 2026

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Three Addresses on College Finances presents an address by Harvey Nathaniel Davis discussing how alumni benefactions and higher tuition should be understood in terms of fairness, value delivered, and satisfaction to both donors and students. The speech contrasts high-pressure fundraising “drives” with voluntary gifts, arguing that true educational support should ensure benefactors receive what they pay for. It critiques organized solicitation and emphasizes tact, transparency, and delivering meaningful outcomes rather than coercive salesmanship.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

AccessFree to download

BENEFACTIONS VS. HIGHER TUITIONS

Pricing, satisfaction, and fairness

Donor value and fundraising practices

Voluntary gifts versus organized drives

Administering alumni loyalty funds

97-84093-26Davis,Harvey Nathaniel Three addresses oncollege financesCastle Point,N.J. 1929 # cOLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIESPRESERVATION DIVISION BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET ORIGINALMATERIAL AS FLMED·EXISTING BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD | | | --- | | 308
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O | ## RESTRICTIONS ON USE: Reprocuciors may not be made wimout pemsslon from Columbin Unlorsity Lbraries TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA FILM SIZE: 35REDUCTION RATIO: 14:1 MAGE PLACEMENT:IA IA IB IIB DATE FILMED: 52197INITIALS:_ 一、 TRACKING是： 28822 FILMED BY PRESERVATION RESOURCES,BETHLEHEM,PA e # THREE ADDRESSES ONCOLLEGE FINANCES BY HARVEY NATHANIEL DAVISPRESIDENT o STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 308 Z Bo×242 1929 /y.51. BENEFACTIONS VS.HIGHER TUITIONS An Addres Delivered at the Annual Dinner of the Broen AlammiAssociation of New York,February 14,1929 Tpoce indnion,not only to gewhat he pays for,but also to pay for whathe gets.Herein lies the appeal of such in-stitutions as Henry Ford's great hospital inDetroit,with its fxed and published scaleof charges,which,if a patient can afford tobe sick at all,gives him the substantial sat-isfaction of feeling that he has paid hisway,that he is under no obligations to any-body,and that he is in no way a recipicntof charity.Futhermore he is not troubledby the knowledge that Mr.Ford made,ormay have made,considerable gifts to thebuilding funds or endowment of the hos-pital.He feels that in this matter Mr.Ford is doubtless getting what he paid forin the form of a durable and continuingatisfaction in the practical realization of anoble dream.But the patient's feelingswould be quite different if,after his con-valescence,he suddenly found himselfconfronted by a begging“drive”to raisethe year's deficit,if the conviction wereforced on him that every Tom,Dick andHarry in the city was being importuned topay a considerable part of the cost of hisown operation,and of all the rest of theoperations of the year,and if he realizedthat mighty few of the Toms,Dicks andHarrys were likely to get what they werepaying for in the form of any real satis-faction whatever.Under such circum-stances,the ex-patient would be likely toresent the failure of the Hospital to charge a fair price in the first place so that it couldpay its way while he paid his And if hecouldn't have afforded the higher charge,he would,I think,have preferred to facethat problem on its own merits,rather thanhave it camouflaged for him by unsoundmanagement on thepart of the Hospital. In the face of all this,why is it that sofew of us in the field of higher educationhave the courage to demand either that ourbenefactors get what they pay for or thatour students pay for what they get? First as to our benefactors.Are theyreally getting what they pay for?Well,in some cases,perhaps they are.When a“drive”is on,what many of our long suf-fering alumni are really paying for is to beet alone,and they pay whatever price theyhave to,to purchase peace.But is immu-nity from persecution the sort of thing thata self respecting educational institutionought to be willing to sell?My own mindrevolts at the iden—and this feeling is(Ilike to believe)quite independent of myknowledge that the commodity,freedomfrom persecution,has in fact an extraor-dinarily low market value.Begging,evenfor a noble cause,is one of the most unsat-isfying of human activities the only lesssatisfying one I know of is being begged. One of the most ski

FAQs

What is the central issue the speaker raises about benefactions and tuition?

The speaker questions whether benefactors truly get what they pay for, and whether students pay for what they get in higher education financing.

How does the address view high-pressure fundraising “drives”?

It argues that organized drives undermine satisfaction by forcing donors to pay through pressure, often without delivering real value to them.

Why does the speaker prefer voluntary (unsolicited) gifts?

The address states that voluntary gifts give satisfaction to both giver and receiver because they reflect genuine loyalty and avoid coercive salesmanship.

Sep 21, 2026

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