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Bryn Mawr's liberal arts education has already been transformative for me. Preserving such a precious educational environment is an important goal. However, financial burden is huge on schools that provide small student to faculty ratio. Not only do hiring faculty members cost a lot, it also takes a lot to continue offering unique, specific courses that only a few out of the entire college community (which is small to begin with) are going to take each term. Unfortunately, liberal arts colleges are less popular than brand-named larger private universities and have to offer generous financial aid to attract students who would otherwise attend more renowned universities. The dilemma is that while financial aid "may be a valuable recruiting tool, colleges have to make up the income they forgo, which can amount to millions of dollars a year" (Finder). This is where the significance of promoting alumni giving comes in. "Much of the alumni donations are allocated toward faculty salaries, financial aid and funding for student-faculty research." (The Middlebury Campus). Increasing alumni giving could be a solution to preserving and maintaining liberal arts education that commits so much resources for each student. Fortunately, "small, prestigious liberal arts colleges tend to have a much higher alumni giveback rate as compared to the national average" and the distinguishable trait from these colleges is that "alums from these colleges tend to have formed more personal relationships with faculty and staff" (The Middlebury Campus). Research also shows that "those that live far away from the college will not respond as strongly to those endeavors" (Bruggink). This suggests that schools with most students living on-campus, such as Bryn Mawr, have the advantage in increasing alumni giving since students feel more attached to their campuses. While small liberal arts schools could face significantly greater financial burdens, my initial research reflects that they could use those endowment-draining characteristics of liberal arts education to, in turn, highlight advantages of it and thereby increase alumni donation.
 

Works Cited

Bruggink, Thomas H., and Kamran Siddiqui. "An econometric model of alumni giving: A case study for a liberal arts college." American Economist 39.2 (1995): 53-61. Tri-College Library. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. <http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?did=8944764&sid=1&Fmt=4&clientId=42764&RQT=309&VName=PQD>.
The article presents an economic model of giving behavior of alumni from liberal arts colleges. It examines the influence of various factors such as income, age, alumni activity, being single, graduating with an engineering major, affiliation with a fraternity/sorority. The authors are critical and objective in evaluating the data. However, limits from utilizing a mathematical model are inevitable. The model presented does not acknowledge these limits but does suggest that the model is meant to be used as a guiding frame.

The Middlebury Campus. "College explores alumni donation trends." The Middlebury Campus. Middlebury College, 9 Sept. 2009. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. <http://www.middleburycampus.com/story/college-explores-alumni-donation-trends>.
The article is written from the point of view of a Middlebury College student. It focuses on Middlebury's alumni giveback rate, which increased to 62% with different strategies utilized. It compares Middlebury's giveback rate to those of public universities and similar private liberal arts colleges. Although it accurately describes in detail how Middlebury increased its giveback rate, it hardly recognizes the hardships that might occur in other institutions because it is a success story written from Middlebury's point of view.

Alan, Finder. "Aid Lets Smaller Colleges Ask, Why Pay for Ivy League Retail?" The New York Times. The New York Times, 1 Jan. 2006. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/education/01merit.html?pagewanted=all>.
Finder clearly favors smaller liberal arts colleges than renowned Ivy League colleges. The article talks about the high price tag of liberal arts colleges and taking advantage of the ones that offer merit aids. Although the article provides a useful information on how a student can receive an Ivy League education at a "discount price" and how this perception is causing financial hardships for liberal arts colleges, it only talks about merit aid and leaves out need-based financial aid, which is becoming a greater financial burden in more prestigious institutions as socioeconomic diversity increases on campuses.