COLLEGE FINANCES by G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 19, 1902

COLLEGE FINANCES.

By G.

With most of the great colleges and great universities, other than State institutions and a few special proteges of very wealthy men, the principal function of the president is to raise money. He is selected with special reference to his influence or skill in this line. Sometimes he is selected because of his ability and willingness to make up from his own purse what he fails to raise from other sources. In fact, the ability to raise funds is in most of such institutions the standard of efficiency. Hon. Seth Low, now mayor of New York City, is said to have given $1,000,000 to Columbia University, and to have contributed annually during his presidency the sum of $40,000 to make up deficits in current expenses. And now Dr. Hopkins of Kansas City, Mo., has been chosen president of Williams College, with the expectation that he will be efficient in adding a much-desired increase to its endowment. The Congregationalist says that Williams has received $1,500,000 in the last twenty years, and its need of funds is now greater than ever. A peculiarity of college finances is, that every endowment stimulates to outlay beyond the income from the endowment, and the burden of maintaining the institution is made heavier

than before. Competition and rivalry, born of sectional or sectarian ambition, have much to do with college financial burdens. The journal above cited says, “It has become the fashion to select young men for the duties of college president, which have grown more and more arduous as the necessity of raising endowments has become more general and pressing.”