Money for nothing?

Last Friday, hundreds of students flocked to the Washington Duke Inn to attend an annual celebration of scholarships and fellowships. In the glitz of the fête, students were seated next to the individual donors that, in many cases, made it possible for them to attend Duke. Permeating the night was a not-so-subtle intimation: Duke gives, and for Duke to give, it needs to receive.

50 percent of Duke students receive financial aid in some capacity, whether it be need-based, athletic or merit. Many of these students would not be at Duke if not for this aid, either because they or their families could not afford it or because a cost differential would tip the scales in favor of another university.

However, the benefactor relationship is a two-sided one. Taking money from the University is not without some degree of cost. The idea of “investing” in a student implies that there will be some return, and this creates a tension between students’ feelings of gratitude and guilt. Students receive aid not just out of generosity, but because they are expected to contribute to campus, both while they are here and in the future. Furthermore, the position of receiving money can be constraining. Engaging in certain integral parts of campus life, such as activism, can carry the risk of losing one’s scholarship and in turn, all of the opportunities of a Duke education. Additionally, it must be said that those not on financial aid also feel pressures— namely, those of returning the investment of families that often sacrifice quite a bit for them to be in their position.

Considering the magnitude of the investment, it must be asked—does taking money from the University come with an expectation of contributing monetarily in the future? Duke already asks for money—a lot, as evidenced by the $3.25 billion it is asking for in the Duke Forward campaign. On campus, this should be evident to students based on the numerous emails received per semester about the Annual Fund Phonathon Program. This will be no surprise to parents, either—Duke parents and guardians receive calls about fundraising requests even as their children are just beginning their undergraduate education at the University. The aggressiveness of these calls and their insensitivity to condition is a space for improvement. Students who move on from Duke to graduate schools where they struggle to subsist on stipends are equally subject to these requests, as are families whose children only attend Duke by virtue of financial aid. This is to say nothing of the senior gift, a tradition encouraged from the beginning of the fourth year, at a time when nearly no student has any guarantee of future income.

It is all well and good for the University to ask for donations, especially in the service of financial aid (though one should not forget the importance of funding graduate students, faculty and research, both for their own sakes and for their impact on the undergraduate experience). Still, there should be more consideration of how and whom to ask. Couching calls for donations in terms of demanded gratefulness or the guilt of an unreturned investment is a callous act. Giving to Duke, as with any nonprofit, should be done out of a belief in the mission of the institution and the good work it does. Commodifying students receiving aid only serves to reinforce the pressure to find validation through high-paying positions. Humans have a natural inclination towards altruism—Duke does not need to furiously push them into it.