OT: WMU Gets $550M Anonymous Donation

[Travelman6]

What a colossal waste of money!

First and foremost, hopefully, it is used to offer full rides to needy and financially strapped students or, at the very least, greatly lower tuition.

 

[Samoo]

What a colossal waste of money!

I don't think your comment had its desired affect.

 

[UCSouth]

If you had 550 mil to give away how would you do it?

He probably doesn't have $550 to pay his half of the rent.

 

[Chin Diesel]

I would agree. I think Peter Werth towers (pun intended) over Shenkman and Burton.

->In addition, Peter Werth, the CEO of ChemWerth, Inc. once again stepped up in support of our student-athletes. He has been incredibly generous over the last several years and recently made a $7.5M gift to athletics, $2.5M of which will go towards the new hockey arena. With this gift Peter has given over $15M to UConn Athletics and over $37M to UConn overall. <-

And that $37M is about 1/15th the size of this donation.


$550M is an incredible amount of money. It is about $80M more than UConn's entire endowment.

Most colleges would be ecstatic to have a single donor giving $37M I'm a lifetime. That size donation can greatly enhance a university.
$550M transforms a university and the entire region around the university.

 

[CallMeBruce]

And that $37M is about 1/15th the size of this donation.


$550M is an incredible amount of money. It is about $80M more than UConn's entire endowment.

Most colleges would be ecstatic to have a single donor giving $37M I'm a lifetime. That size donation can greatly enhance a university.
$550M transforms a university and the entire region around the university.

And assuming it's Stryker (and it almost certainly is), she's already given $100M in the past.

 

[Adios]

Kalamazoo will have an elite medical school now. Yup, waste of money.

It's obvious the donation is from Ronda Stryker. Med school is named after her grandfather and is private. That allows for deeper research, perhaps.

 

[Waquoit]

Bob must be loaded after selling the Furniture biz to Bain Capital.

 

[Guapo]

It's either Gores or the Stryker granddaughter. Jeter is nowhere near that ballpark.

Whenever I see stuff like this I wonder why UConn doesn't seem to really have any huge donors. Has UConn ever had a billionaire grad or anyone with several hundreds of millions?

Bob Kaufman

 

[Watchdog]

It's either Gores or the Stryker granddaughter. Jeter is nowhere near that ballpark.

Whenever I see stuff like this I wonder why UConn doesn't seem to really have any huge donors. Has UConn ever had a billionaire grad or anyone with several hundreds of millions?

It's hard for UConn to have donors achieve that level of wealth when their grads and fans spend all their time on the Boneyard.............

 

[upstater]

This is really a private school at this point when you realize tuition equals spending per student already. The directional Michigan universities get very little support and this will be hugely transformative for them. Although the other directionals must be wondering if support can be redirected to them given the enormous amount of money.

WMU was already the best of the 5 but now it's elevated in status to compete with the state's top publics.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

"Biggest single donation ever received by a directional."

 

[Guapo]

This is really a private school at this point when you realize tuition equals spending per student already. The directional Michigan universities get very little support and this will be hugely transformative for them. Although the other directionals must be wondering if support can be redirected to them given the enormous amount of money.

WMU was already the best of the 5 but now it's elevated in status to compete with the state's top publics.

Settle down for a second here, Michigan’s endowment is 12.5 Billion (with a B) dollars and Michigan State’s is 3.5 Billion dollars. You add in everything else; research money, athletic money etc and they could crush WMU if they really wanted to. Not saying they will or should, just that they could.

This is awesome for WMU, but they are still not actually “competing” with Michigan or MSU in any meaningful way

 

[QDOG5]

WMU has been popular with Illinois kids because it is easy to get in state tuition after your freshman year. Many of the midwest state universities have in state tuition reciprocity with neighboring states but none with Illinois. Too broke @$$ I guess. Kalamazoo is a cool town. Plenty of recreation and Bells Brewery.

 

[QDOG5]

Larry Bell of Bell's Brewery has made a lot of good beer and a lot of money. Certainly not $550 mil. In 2014 Bell attended all 81 Cubs home games. He brought masochism to a new level. Actually Wrigley is a great place to see a ball game.

 

[Pawsox]

The Mitchell family (huge real estate company) has given my school, South Alabama, over $113 million over the years. The strange thing is that the two brothers that gave all of this money did not even go to South. Their sons did, but not them. There is a reason we have the Mitchell Center (basketball), Mitchell School of Business, and Mitchell Cancer Research Institute. If they give any more, it may become Mitchell University.

 

[Mr. French]

Kalamazoo will have an elite medical school now. Yup, waste of money.

It's obvious the donation is from Ronda Stryker. Med school is named after her grandfather and is private. That allows for deeper research, perhaps.

5.8B net worth, sheeeeesh. 550M to a school seems insane but when you have 5.8B I guess it's not too hard to part with.

 

[superjohn]

5.8B net worth, sheeeeesh. 550M to a school seems insane but when you have 5.8B I guess it's not too hard to part with.

She'll still have way more than 5.8 billion, Bloomberg has her net worth at over 7.5 billion.

 

[Mr. French]

She'll still have way more than 5.8 billion, Bloomberg has her net worth at over 7.5 billion.

I just went off of Wikipedia, but either way she’s got bread.

 

[upstater]

Settle down for a second here, Michigan’s endowment is 12.5 Billion (with a B) dollars and Michigan State’s is 3.5 Billion dollars. You add in everything else; research money, athletic money etc and they could crush WMU if they really wanted to. Not saying they will or should, just that they could.

This is awesome for WMU, but they are still not actually “competing” with Michigan or MSU in any meaningful way

I'm not talking about sports.

I well know the schools are like apples and oranges. But while MSU may have 3.5x the endowment WMU has, it also has 3x as many undergrads. Proportionally WMU holds its own in this measure, especially when you realize the built in costs of the research heavy programs at MSU. In bigger states, you see this dynamic a lot, with less research intensive schools that have good funding stealing students from the bigger research schools. Ex. Geneseo in NY taking kids from the University centers, or Santa Cruz nabbing kids from UCLA or San Diego. In the past, the directional Michigan schools couldn't offer kids such programs with resources. Now WMU can. It makes a huge difference.

 

[Travelman6]

The Mitchell family (huge real estate company) has given my school, South Alabama, over $113 million over the years. The strange thing is that the two brothers that gave all of this money did not even go to South. Their sons did, but not them. There is a reason we have the Mitchell Center (basketball), Mitchell School of Business, and Mitchell Cancer Research Institute. If they give any more, it may become Mitchell University.

 

[Northbound]

And that $37M is about 1/15th the size of this donation.


$550M is an incredible amount of money. It is about $80M more than UConn's entire endowment.

Most colleges would be ecstatic to have a single donor giving $37M I'm a lifetime. That size donation can greatly enhance a university.
$550M transforms a university and the entire region around the university.

I would have thought UConn’s endowment was much larger than that. My wife’s school has an endowment of like $7B.

 

[Guapo]

I'm not talking about sports.

I well know the schools are like apples and oranges. But while MSU may have 3.5x the endowment WMU has, it also has 3x as many undergrads. Proportionally WMU holds its own in this measure, especially when you realize the built in costs of the research heavy programs at MSU. In bigger states, you see this dynamic a lot, with less research intensive schools that have good funding stealing students from the bigger research schools. Ex. Geneseo in NY taking kids from the University centers, or Santa Cruz nabbing kids from UCLA or San Diego. In the past, the directional Michigan schools couldn't offer kids such programs with resources. Now WMU can. It makes a huge difference.

I’m not talking sports, either. But, fair enough. Obviously it’ll make a huge difference and, like I said, this is really great for them

 

[Chin Diesel]

I would have thought UConn’s endowment was much larger than that. My wife’s school has an endowment of like $7B.

As other's have mentioned earlier in this thread and in previous threads, UConn's endowment is very low for a school of its size, history and desired stature within academia. The low endowment trickles down to affect so much of what UConn wants to do going forward.

 

[Pinnacle]

I don't think your comment had its desired affect.

How so? I don't give a crap what other commenters say. It is a total waste of money. For the most part Universities today are warping the minds of our youth.

 

[HooperScooper]

How so? I don't give a crap what other commenters say. It is a total waste of money. For the most part Universities today are warping the minds of our youth.

Can you explain how so? I know I probably shouldn't be asking but I need to know.