By Patricia Alex, Staff Writer, The Record
Rowan University turned to private donors recently to buy its president a $1 million home, which it claimed was needed, perhaps ironically, to entertain donors to the state school. Alumni giving at Rutgers rose from $66.7 million in 2006 to $187.9 million in 2015. And William Paterson University tripled the donations to a scholarship fund that this year awarded more than $1 million to students.
[…]But concerns have been raised that donor priorities could supplant those of the public and that transparency could be lacking when donors request anonymity.
“There is a critique in general about the growing corporate influence over scholarship,” said Nat Bender, communications director of the union that represents faculty at New Jersey’s state colleges and universities.
And, he said, it’s not unusual for the big donor priorities to become school priorities.
“Part of the premise for the big football program [at Rutgers] is the name recognition that is supposed to bring big donors,” Bender said. In the meantime, Rutgers athletics runs at a deficit, one that is shored up by mandatory fees paid by students.
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