College Admission Help

Do your homework on college grants and college savings plans
For some, saving money for a child’s or grandchild's college education seems nearly impossible. Before you give up the battle, however, consider this: A high school graduate will earn an average annual income of $26,416. A college graduate will earn an average annual income of $34,000 to $74,000. For someone who works 40 years, that can add up to an additional $320,000 to $1.92 million in earnings. That's quite a return on an investment in a college education!
Saving for college may seem like a monumental task, but you don’t need to save the entire amount overnight, and, chances are, you won't need to finance the entire expense yourself. Today, there are a multitude of loans, work programs, tax credits, and so forth designed to help put college within the grasp of nearly everyone. With a little homework, you can find all the options available to you.
Here are five sources of college funding to consider:
Grants and Scholarships
Grants and scholarships are awarded on a number of criteria, including grades, talent, heritage, race and gender. Grants and scholarships can be offered locally, statewide, nationwide and by particular colleges and universities. For that reason, it can be difficult to pinpoint all these opportunities. The Internet, school counselors and the financial aid offices of colleges and universities can provide a wealth of information on this topic. Grants and scholarships typically supplement college costs rather than cover total expenses. Therefore, it's important you take an active role in saving for your child's educational future.
Investments
Through the years, parents and grandparents have used savings bonds, zero coupon bonds and growth-and-income mutual funds to help with educational expenses. All are excellent ways to save for a college education. In more recent years, however, several new tools to help save for or offset college expenses have been introduced. All make financing a college education easier than ever before.
The Coverdell Education Savings Account (Education IRA)
A Coverdell education savings account can be established by anyone interested in setting aside dollars now to pay for future higher-education expenses. The annual contribution limit to a Coverdell education savings account is $2,000, a sizable increase over the previous limit of $500.
Once a Coverdell education savings account is established, anyone - a family member, friend or the child - can contribute to the account as long as he or she meets the adjusted gross income limits. A single tax filer can earn up to $95,000 and a married couple filing jointly can earn up to $190,000 and make full contributions. For single tax filers, the phase out range is $95,000 to $110,000. For married couples filing jointly, the phaseout range is $190,000 to $220,000.
For example, if a married couple has an adjusted gross income of $120,000, they can contribute the entire limit to an education savings account. However, if the married couple has adjusted gross income of $205,000, they can only contribute half of the limit to the Coverdell education savings account.
Eligible education expenses covered by the Coverdell education savings account included qualified elementary and secondary school expense (tuition, fees, tutoring, special-needs services, books, supplies, computer equipment, room and board, uniforms and transportation).
Corporations and other entities, including tax-exempt organizations, are permitted to make contributions to a Coverdell education savings account, but contributions by an employer are included in an employee's taxable income.
Another new alternative to saving for a college education is 529 plans.
529 plans can be established for a child or grandchild. When establishing a 529 plan, you choose from two options:
1. Prepaid tuition programs - In a prepaid tuition plan, you buy future tuition credit - at today’s prices - that is generally used at an instate school.
2. Savings plans - Under these plans, your earnings are not taxed as they accumulate, and qualified withdrawals are free from federal income tax.
Savings plans are the more popular of the two plans because they generally don't restrict students to certain colleges in specific states. Keep in mind, though, that withdrawals used for expenses other than qualified higher education expenditures may be subject to federal and state taxes and other penalties.
Tax credits
Even if you already have a child enrolled in college, help still may be available. The Hope Scholarship Credit and the Lifetime Learning Credit are tax credits that can be used to offset college tuition and fees.
The exact amount that can be claimed depends on your family's income, the amount of qualified tuition and fees paid and the amount of certain scholarships and allowances subtracted from tuition. If you’d like college to be in the future of your child or grandchild, now is the time to begin. An investment professional can give you a good idea of how much you need to put aside for a college education and which investments are best-suited to your particular needs. Then, start searching for additional financing. Remember, there's a wealth of financing for those who do their homework!


Do your homework on college grants and college savings plans

The secrets of College 'Admission'
By LAURIE MUCHNICK
Bloomberg News
Jean Hanff Korelitz is an Ivy League spy.
After reading high-schoolers' applications to Princeton University for two years, she has written "Admission," (Grand Central, 452 pages, $24.99), a novel that reveals the secrets of a place many prospects find more mysterious than the Pentagon.
Does the bright but unremarkable scion of an old Princeton family have a better chance of getting in than the quirkily brilliant son of supermarket workers? Making those judgments is Portia Nathan, a 38-year-old admissions officer. As the book begins, she's visiting high schools to meet with interested students.
We're treated to word-for-word transcriptions of two sessions, one at Deerfield Academy, a prestigious (real-life) boarding school, and one at a hippy-dippy (fictional) school called Quest.
"Look, there is no mystery about this," Portia says to the Deerfield kids. "We're looking for intellectual passion. ... We are looking for the student who is so jazzed about ... whatever ... that he or she can't wait to get to Princeton and find out everything there is to know about it."
I wouldn't have thought a speech about application essays could be interesting, but Korelitz makes it work. She doesn't have a definitive answer for why some get in and some don't, but it's fascinating to listen to her ruminate on the subject.
One of the hints Portia gives those Deerfield students is not to "mount a campaign": "There's very little we can learn from four of your teachers that we couldn't have learned from two."
Korelitz ignores her own advice, throwing too much stuff into the book, but in the end I'd have to mark her file "Admit."


The secrets of College 'Admission'

College Counselor Advice: Seniors Make Choices For Life Beyond High School
By Dave Emke
demke@post-journal.com
Spring is an exciting time for high school seniors.
Thirteen years of public schooling is coming to an end, and all the hard work and dedication will be rewarded with a high school diploma.
Then it's graduation parties, summer vacation and the feeling of freedom that comes with knowing that they will never need to attend high school again.
But ... then what?
The choices are static: enroll in community college, go to a four-year college, enter the work force or join the military. In recent years, as the importance of a college degree has grown more and more, a higher percentage of students has chosen the college route. However, given the current economic climate and the high price of a college education, numbers about which college they attend may be shifting.
A CHANGING CLIMATE
According to Emily Harvey, Panama Central School guidance counselor, the decision process for students is radically different than it was 11 years ago when she first entered the field.
''I have more kids talking about the cost and being nervous about the cost,'' Ms. Harvey said. ''They're just trying to find more out about what the financial-aid packages include and how much debt they're going to be in at the end of the four years.''
What students are finding when they crunch the numbers, guidance counselors report, is the value afforded to them by colleges with two-year programs such as Jamestown Community College and Jamestown Business College.
''JCC offers free tuition to the top 20 percent (in a high school graduating class),'' Ms. Harvey said. ''And we have more students in the top 20 percent taking advantage of that USA scholarship than what we've had in the past.''
Tina Duliba, Falconer Central School guidance counselor, says that families in her district have been in tune with the USA Scholarship for years, as well as other opportunities provided by the local two-year schools.
''At JCC and JBC, because the top seniors get to go there free of tuition, and JBC also has one that they give a tuition scholarship, many of our students stay at JCC and JBC,'' Ms. Duliba said. ''JCC offers a lot of the college credits through the high schools, and a lot of the kids get at least the first year done while they're still in high school.''
Sixty-seven of Falconer's 2008 graduates went on to two-year schools while only 29 went directly to a four-year school, according to the district's New York state report card. At Panama, 26 went to two-year schools and 13 enrolled in four-year schools. Only five of the 18 Chautauqua County school districts sent more graduates to four-year schools than to two-year schools in 2008 - and three of them (Fredonia, Silver Creek and Westfield) are located in the North County, just a stone's throw from the State University at Fredonia.
''As far economic status goes, the Falconer parents have always been really in tune to that anyway,'' Ms. Duliba said. While numbers may be increasing slightly, she said, students from her district have been choosing the less-expensive option of the nearby two-year colleges for years.
CAREFUL CONSIDERATION
While two-year colleges do offer many advantages for cash-strapped graduating seniors and their families, Ms. Harvey says it is still important for students to test the market - good deals might be out there, though not as plentiful as in the past.
''It seems like a lot of kids would always say 'Well, my parents want me to go to JCC because of the cost,''' she said. ''We in the past always would say 'Just wait and apply to a couple schools and see what you can get for a financial aid package, because you might find that it won't be that much for you to go to a four-year school. That isn't the case anymore.''
Ms. Harvey says there are ''hardly any'' four-year schools that can compete with the cost of community colleges, no matter the financial-aid package. Despite this, she said it is her department's stance to allow students to make their own decisions about finances. She says her department's place is to provide the students with as much information as possible about whatever schools to which they might apply.
''We really try not to push anything on the kids,'' she said. ''Our general advice hasn't changed. We tell the kids not to be shocked by the sticker price. We explain to them how the financial-aid system works, what their award letters will look like, what the different types of financial aid are, and how to determine what the actual cost is going to be.''
Ms. Duliba says that her school, despite the still relatively small proportion of students who choose the route, has seen a rise in the number of students who choose to attend four-year schools straight out of high school.
''They see their siblings and everybody achieving and going to some of these private universities,'' she said. ''Private universities offer a quality price when it's merit-based. And we have kids all over Chautauqua County who do exceptionally well with their GPAs and on their SATs and ACTs. They can get some wonderful scholarships.''
Ms. Duliba said that many students are working even harder than before to keep their grades high and to qualify for scholarships, knowing that may be the only way they can get themselves into the college of their dreams.
Students shouldn't feel pressured to attend a two-year school or stay out of college altogether just because of financial concerns, Ms. Harvey said.
''We always tell the kids we want them to consider all their options and look at all the information they can so that they can make the best decision for them,'' she said. ''Happiness is part of the equation.''


College Counselor Advice: Seniors Make Choices For Life Beyond High School

Social Media and College Admissions: Researcher Presents Findings on How Colleges Use Social Media to Recruit Prospective Students
MADISON, Wis., A new report on social media in college admission offices shows a 32 percent increase in the use of social networking applications between 2007 and 2008. The report, which is based on the first statistically significant longitudinal study on the use of social media in college admissions, demonstrates the rapid pace and expanding breadth at which colleges are adopting social media technology to both recruit and research prospective students.
The report's lead researcher, Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, a professor of marketing and director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, presented her findings recently in an online seminar titled Adopting Social Media: What New Studies Say. Hosted by Magna Publications, the seminar is now available in CD and/or transcript format. To order a copy, visit http://www.magnapubs.com/catalog/cds/602243-1.html
Conducted by the Univrsity of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research in cooperation with the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), the new study compares the results of the first study conducted in 2007 with the new findings in 2008. Both surveys were conducted with approximately 500 admissions offices at four-year accredited institutions in the United States.
The Use of Social Media in College Admissions on the Rise
In the studies, Barnes and fellow researcher Eric Mattson set out to discover how familiar higher education institutions are with social media, how they're using it, whether they think it's important, and if they're using it to recruit and research prospective students. What they found was that higher education is outpacing the corporate sector in the use of social media with just 15 percent of college admissions offices reporting that they do not use any social media. In 2007, 39 percent said they didn't use social media.
In fact, the study found year-to-year increases across the board, including the number of college admissions offices that say they use the following applications:
• Social networking: 61 percent, up from 29 percent
• Videoblogging: 41 percent, up from 19 percent
• Blogging: 41 percent, up from 33 percent
• Message boards: 36 percent, up from 27 percent
• Podcasts: 16 percent, up from 14 percent
• Wikis: 10 percent, up from 3 percent
Yet, despite the general widespread use and rapid adoption of social media in college admissions offices, there's still work to be done, according to researchers.
"There is evidence of enthusiasm and eagerness to embrace these new communications tools, but there is also evidence that these powerful tools are not being utilized to their potential," said Barnes. "Schools using social media must learn the 'rules of engagement' in the online world in order to maximize their effectiveness."
The report also serves as a warning to college-bound students who readily use social networking applications such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter to communicate with friends. About a quarter of admissions officers reported using search engines and social networking sites to research prospective students who were candidates for scholarships or entry into high-demand programs as a way of protecting the school from potential embarrassment.
During the seminar Adopting Social Media: What New Studies Say, Dr. Barnes discussed findings of the report -- including a few red flags -- and provided strategies for college admissions offices looking to increase their use and understanding of social media tools, including best practices in higher education blogging, how to monitor social media for posts about your school, best practices for social networking, and legal and ethical considerations.


Social Media and College Admissions: Researcher Presents Findings on How Colleges Use Social Media to Recruit Prospective Students

College Counselor Advice: Changes Test the Observation Powers of Juniors

By Dr. Patrick O’Connor
As seniors continue to weigh their college options and colleges continue to look for the crystal ball that will tell them how many students are really coming to campus this fall, a small story broke recently that should be of great interest to juniors. Colby College is now giving applicants the choice of submitting either the SAT or the ACT OR three SAT Subject tests. The addition of the option of sending Subject tests adds a brand new option to test takers. Since Subject tests are designed to measure what students have learned in classes, students might decide these tests will better show what they know and require less test prep.

Colby’s decision adds another test choice in a year that’s rich with new test choices. College Board is now offering students the option of choosing what scores to send to colleges—remember that College Board used to send all SAT results to a college, leaving the student no choice but to send low scores along with high ones. College Board feels this new option will take some of the stress out of test taking…

…but of course, it hasn’t. Some colleges have responded to this new option by announcing they are going to require students to send ALL test scores, even if College Board and ACT offers the choice of sending only some. Counselors have expressed concern that the new policy will put more pressure on students who may have a high Verbal score on one test and a high Math on the other—will sending both be an advantage, or will the low scores on both put them behind the 8 ball?

Finally, all of this test talk has led even more colleges to look at their testing policies and say “Ya know what? Forget it!” Connecticut College is the latest school to go test optional; you can send some, all, or none of your test scores, and it’s more than OK with them. CC joins hundreds of colleges who have made the same decision—since test prep courses can sometimes teach students to appear smarter than they are, the transcript is becoming a more reliable source of information, even though grading scales vary greatly from one high school to the next. http://www.fairtest.org/ has a list of test-optional schools; take a look, and be sure to go to the college’s Web site to confirm the policy.

What’s a junior to do in the midst of all this change? First, take a test. Unless you know all the colleges you want to apply to are test optional, there’s a good chance you’re going to need a set of scores come September—and since rolling admission colleges are first come first serve, you want to have a set of scores good to go. It’s not too late to sign up for the late spring tests, so get busy—go to www.collegeboard.com and www.act.org for SAT and ACT, respectively.

Second, watch the Web sites. Colby and Connecticut College announced their changes this week, but many other colleges are so focused on this year’s seniors, they might not get around to making their announcements until May. The changes may not impact your decisions about which tests to take and which scores to send, but you never know the opportunities new changes might bring. So bookmark the Web pages of your favorite colleges, sign up for a test or two, and buckle up—the ride may get pretty wild.

College Counselor Advice: Changes Test the Observation Powers of Juniors

Report Finds Growing Use of Social Networking Tools in College Admissions
By: Heather Zimar
College admissions officers may take a student's MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, or other online social networking activity into account during the college admission process, according to a report released this week by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC).

According to a NACAC press release on the report, one-fourth of colleges surveyed indicated that they used a Web search or social networking technology to locate information about prospective students. The paper also suggested that colleges are more likely than not to use social media in promotion and student recruitment. Other findings included:
• More than half (53 percent) of colleges monitor social media for "buzz" about their school.

• 33 percent of colleges maintain a blog, 29 percent maintain a presence on social networking Web sites, 27 percent maintain message- or bulletin-boards, 19 percent use video blogging, and 14 percent issue podcasts. 39 percent of colleges surveyed reported using no social media technology.

• 88 percent of admission offices believed social media were either "somewhat" or "very" important to their future recruitment efforts
According to the press release, NACAC's research on social networking sites was intended to:
1) Present recent data collected by the author on the extent to which colleges and universities are using social media for recruitment;
2)Highlight best practices for blogging and the use of other social media and Web 2.0 applications for those institutions who are new to these endeavors
3) Begin to explore the ethical and legal issue inherent in engaging with prospective students through these media."


Report Finds Growing Use of Social Networking Tools in College Admissions

College Scholarship News: New Unrest on Campus as Donors Rebel
By JOHN HECHINGER
HARTFORD, Conn. -- Financially strapped colleges are angering their benefactors by selling school radio stations, auctioning Georgia O'Keeffe paintings and dipping into endowments for purposes their donors may not have intended.
In one previously undisclosed fight, Trinity College in Connecticut is facing government scrutiny for its plan to spend part of a $9 million endowment from Wall Street investing legend Shelby Cullom Davis.
Trinity's Davis professor of business, Gerald Gunderson, says he believed the plan, which would have funded scholarships for international students, violated the wishes of the late Mr. Davis. He alerted the Connecticut attorney general's office. Then, Mr. Gunderson said in notes submitted to the agency, Trinity's president summoned him to the school's cavernous Gothic conference room, where he called the professor a "scoundrel" and threatened not to reappoint him.
Trinity said some of Mr. Davis's family approved of the plan but it is now coming up with a new one, and declined to discuss the meeting.
Battles such as the one at Trinity show why the nation's universities may have trouble finding the cash for urgent needs in a deep recession. As schools struggle more than they have in decades to fund their core operations, many are looking to a rich pool of so-called restricted gifts -- held in endowments whose donors often provide firm instructions on how their money should be spent.
Students came out in force after Brandeis said it would sell its Rose Art Museum collection. The Rose family called it 'plundering' a family gift.
In New Orleans, a lingering court battle pits Tulane University, which dissolved its all-female Newcomb College in 2006, against a descendent of Newcomb's founder. St. Olaf College in Minnesota continues to fight a legal challenge by angry donors to WCAL, the college radio station the school sold five years ago.
Plans to sell artwork have also sparked conflict. Nashville's Fisk University is in litigation over its plans to sell paintings given by Ms. O'Keeffe. In January, Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., announced it would close its Rose Art Museum and sell its 7,000-piece collection, which includes paintings by Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, to pay faculty salaries and other expenses. The Rose family, which gave money to establish the museum, is upset by what it calls the potential "plundering" of the $350 million collection. Brandeis now says it plans to sell "a limited number" of pieces, if any, and expects to keep the museum open as a "teaching and exhibition gallery."
Such disputes were easier to avoid during the economic boom. A rising stock market and deep-pocketed donors helped boost college endowments to $413 billion in the fiscal year that ended last June. Last year alone, donors to higher education gave a record $31.6 billion, according to the nonprofit Council for Aid to Education. Restricted gifts can account for as much as three-quarters of a university's endowment. Schools rely on tuition, unrestricted gifts and often state and federal money to keep running.
Now the pie is shrinking. Colleges posted average investment losses of 23% from July 1 to Nov. 30, and markets have fallen more since. Administrators are bracing for the sharpest drop in giving since 1975, when contributions fell 3.6%, the biggest drop in half a century. Already, institutions are laying off employees, calling off tenure searches and scrapping construction plans.
"Schools are scrambling to find assets they can turn into cash," says Frederic Fransen, an Indiana adviser to big donors who helps them structure gift terms to maximize control. "If you've given something that the university doesn't believe is part of its core mission, those are the first things to go."

College presidents have long felt tension over the responsibility to honor "donor intent." While schools appreciate the generosity, narrow restrictions on gifts made decades ago can tie their hands when times are tight. Amid the recession, many schools, including Harvard University, the nation's wealthiest, are making appeals for gifts they can deploy where they see the greatest need, especially toward financial aid. Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, which represents more than 1,600 colleges, says she expects more schools to seek leeway from donors of restricted gifts.
Politically conservative donors say they are also growing more concerned about their perception of colleges' liberal drift, and are seeking stricter upfront restrictions on donations. In recent years, 20 states and the District of Columbia have changed their laws to make it easier for donors to enforce restrictions when gifts are made in the form of a charitable trust.
"There's much greater interest among donors in enforcing gifts than there ever was," says Marion Fremont-Smith, a senior research fellow at Harvard's Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations.
Donors have also been emboldened by the high-profile lawsuit filed by members of the Robertson family against Princeton University, says Anne D. Neal, president of the nonprofit American Council of Trustees and Alumni. In 1961, eager to train graduate students for government service, the original donors gave money that grew into a $700 million fund at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The current generation of the family challenged the school's use of the money. Princeton said it had been faithful to the gift's intent but agreed last year to pay $100 million to settle the case.
The clash over the Davis gift has simmered on Trinity's quiet campus of 2,200 students. Founded in 1823, the liberal-arts college has Episcopalian roots and Gothic architecture patterned after British universities.
In 1976, the school accepted a $750,000 gift from Mr. Davis, founder of a New York money-management firm who made a $900 million fortune investing in insurance stocks. Mr. Davis was a major benefactor to Wellesley College, Columbia University, Tufts University and his own alma mater, Princeton. But he had a personal connection to Trinity: His son-in-law was a graduate of the school and its campus overlooks downtown Hartford, an insurance hub.
In 1981, Trinity President Theodore D. Lockwood wrote to Mr. Davis that the fund, by then $1.6 million, was big enough to be tapped to create a Shelby Cullom Davis Professorship of American Business and Economic Enterprise. The letter listed several related activities, such as campus visits from business leaders. Mr. Lockwood also sought flexibility to use the money as the school saw fit "as conditions evolved and opportunities arose."
In a return letter, Mr. Davis approved the professorship and activities Mr. Lockwood specified. But he rejected any other leeway. "It is my wish that the funds and income from the Endowment be used for the various purposes you have described...and for no other purposes."
Trinity tapped Mr. Gunderson, an economic historian who shared Mr. Davis's conservative political philosophy, to be the Davis professor.
The Davis fund grew beyond the needs of meeting Mr. Gunderson's $155,000-a-year salary. By 2007, it reached $13.5 million, or 3% of Trinity's total endowment, and generated more than $500,000 a year in income. After recent market declines, the fund is now estimated at $9 million.
Mr. Gunderson, 68 years old, says he complained for years that the school was starving the program and had rejected his frequent requests to add another full-time professor and a business-executive-in-residence program. The letter from Mr. Lockwood provides for the creation of a single professorship, but it doesn't explicitly rule out adding another.
Mr. Gunderson says he suspects that liberal academics at Trinity have blocked these plans and have little interest in Mr. Davis's vision. Mr. Gunderson, who is treasurer of the free-market nonprofit Yankee Institute, says some professors opposed his position in the 1970s in an economics department whose courses often stressed the downside of capitalism. He notes that the school, like many others, has programs in Progressive American Social Movements and Women, Gender and Sexuality.
"They are undercutting not just my program," he says. "They are undercutting my view of the world, too."
Ronald Joyce, Trinity's vice president for advancement, says the school is open to all political views and that it believes the terms of the original gift prevent adding another professor. "We're complying with the letter and the intent of Mr. Davis's ambitions," he says.
Last April, Trinity's current president, James F. Jones Jr., sent Mr. Gunderson an email saying he had been looking for ways to use the "enormous" Davis fund to "benefit the College in ways different from merely watching the endowment continue to balloon because of the original strictures." Mr. Jones said he had approached some Davis family members about using the money for financial aid for foreign students through another program the family had helped fund.
Mr. Gunderson replied that the college had entered into a binding contract with Shelby Cullom Davis, not his family. "Simply wishing things were different or saying that someone thinks it is a good idea is not sufficient and will not stand a legal challenge," he wrote.
Brandeis University's endowment, which stood at $712 million on June 30, is estimated to be down 20% to 25% since then. In January, the Waltham, Mass., school announced it would close its Rose Art Museum and sell its collection -- 7,000 pieces, including paintings by Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.
The announcement enraged donors, alumni and particularly members of the family of Edward and Bertha C. Rose, who had donated $1 million to establish the museum, which opened in 1961, and $2 million in endowment funds that have been used to support the institution and buy 259 art works.
Brandeis's president, Jehuda Reinharz, has since backtracked, saying the school plans to sell "a limited number" of pieces, if any, and has formed a special committee to review its actions. But many donors, including more than 50 members of the Rose family, are skeptical about whether the plan has changed and say they are exploring legal action. The Massachusetts Attorney General's office said it will examine any art sales to see if they are in keeping with the terms of the original gifts.
Five years ago, St. Olaf College, a top-tier Lutheran school, sold its radio station to Minnesota Public Radio for $10.5 million, adding the money to its endowment for professorships and other general purposes. Donors who funded WCAL are still fighting in court.
Since the station was founded in the 1920s, donors have given millions of dollars to fund equipment, a building and a radio tower, according to a group called SaveWCAL.
The station, which once featured classical music and Christian liturgy, now plays music from Iggy and the Stooges, Death Cab for Cutie and other rock bands.
SaveWCAL sued last fall to reverse the sale.
In February, a state court judge in Minnesota sided with St. Olaf, saying the WCAL sale was proper and that SaveWCAL had waited too long to challenge it. SaveWCAL plans to appeal. "St. Olaf has looted the assets they were charged with protecting," St. Olaf alumna Ruth Sylte, the president of SaveWCAL, says. "Donors everywhere should be worried."
Steven Blodgett, a St. Olaf administrator, says opponents are "harassing the college" with their court fight. "Everybody wants to just move on," he says.
Following that exchange, Kathryn W. Davis, the donor's 102-year-old widow, signed a document endorsing the use of her husband's gift for the scholarships. But in an interview, she said the school hadn't explained the restrictions her husband had outlined in his 1981 letter to the school, and said the endowment "should be used as my husband wished."
The couple's son, Shelby M.C. Davis, and grandson, Christopher C. Davis, both successful money managers, signed off on the fund's use for scholarships.
Diana Davis Spencer, the donor's daughter, says she only recently heard about the plan from Mr. Gunderson and is angry that Trinity didn't contact her. Ms. Spencer, whose own philanthropy focuses on entrepreneurship, says her father would have opposed any change to the endowment's mission. The university is "morally incorrect" and its plan "undermines donors' confidence," she says.
Trinity's Mr. Joyce says the school believed key members of the family had been briefed.
After the April email exchange, Mr. Gunderson's lawyer contacted the Connecticut attorney general's office, which began its review. In the fall, Mr. Gunderson looked through financial data that the school had filed with the attorney general and noticed that about $200,000 of endowment money had been used to fund an internship program for college students over the past five years.
Mr. Gunderson says he was concerned in part because the school, facing a budget crunch, had tapped other restricted endowment money in 2004 but returned it after a faculty revolt. Trinity confirms this episode.
Mr. Joyce said Trinity this month reimbursed the Davis endowment for $191,337 spent on the internship program, though he said the original agreement still permits the school to spend a small amount annually on the initiative.
On Oct. 20, Mr. Jones, Trinity's president, called Mr. Gunderson to the conference-room meeting. According to the professor's notes, submitted to the attorney general, Mr. Jones called him "a liar and a bully," threatened not to reappoint him and told him not speak to any other administrators. The notes said the president insisted on approving future spending from the Davis fund "down to a box of paperclips."
Mr. Joyce, who said Mr. Jones wouldn't be available for comment, declined to discuss the meeting. Mr. Joyce says he would be "very surprised" if Mr. Gunderson's contract weren't renewed when it comes up in July 2010.
In a February letter, the attorney general's office told Trinity it could find no evidence that Mr. Davis intended the college or his family to have discretion to direct income from the endowment to purposes "other than the study and promotion of the economic theories of the free enterprise system."
Mr. Joyce says Trinity scuttled its scholarship plan. The school intends to submit a new proposal to the attorney general and the Davis family on how it would spend excess Davis funds.
The attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, says he will consider the proposal. But he cautioned that colleges, despite financial pressures, can't stray from donors' intent: "There's a vastly increasing temptation for schools to fill gaps or even launch new initiatives using money that was meant for another purpose."


College Scholarship News: New Unrest on Campus as Donors Rebel