Lyon College ranked among best in nation in alumni giving rate
March 5, 2007
Lyon College has accomplished something that even world famous Ivy League institutions
such as Harvard, Yale, Cornell and Columbia haven’t been able to do – at least half of Lyon’s former students gave something back to their alma mater.According to a survey recently released by the Council for Aid to Education, smaller schools like Lyon boast higher alumni giving rates than the bigger, better known, schools.
Even Stanford University, the leader in terms of dollar amounts with $911 million given by former students, couldn’t match the 50 percent alumni giving rate boasted by Lyon College.
Ann Kaplan, director of CAE’s Voluntary Support of Education Survey, said according to the survey of slightly more than 1,000 colleges nationwide, that on average less than 12 percent of alumni gave to their alma maters, far below Lyon’s 50 percent alumni giving rate.
The survey does not count other income, such as tuition, government grants or interest from endowments.
On the list of 1,014 schools, Lyon ranked No. 10, with a 50.5 percent alumni giving rate. Kaplan said, however, that some of the schools ranked ahead of Lyon should not be considered.
"I would take the first three off the list, as the first two (University of California, Merced and Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, N.C.) have virtually no alumni of record, and Rockefeller (No. 3) I suspect has way too many ‘lost’ alumni," she explained. "Their alumni of record number is too low considering their enrollment. I’d consider Amherst number one."
That would place Lyon at No. 7 on the national list.
Alumni participation is vital not only for the cash it brings in, but also for the message it sends to foundations that provide grants. Quite often, these foundations want to know how much alumni and their parents give because those are the people that know the school better than anyone.
Tim Bruner, Lyon’s vice president for institutional advancement, agrees that the giving is more important than the amount.
"The percentage of alumni giving is a major factor in the funding process of foundations that give out grants," he said. "They don’t ask how much they give; they ask us the percentage. The foundations figure, if the alums don’t believe in the school and what they’re doing, why should the foundations?"
One reason alumni are willing – and able – to give something back to the College is because Lyon graduates leave school with far less of a debt load on their shoulders than students at other colleges throughout the country do.
Most Lyon students graduate owing about $13,000 in student loans, far below the average of $25,000 to $30,000 seen at many national universities. Those figures put Lyon College on U.S. News & World Report’s list of liberal arts colleges in the nation whose graduates leave school owing the least.