Does CU just not have alumni that are successful enough to donate that kind of cash, or is our alumni base just unwilling to donate?
My unfair, nonPC, and uniformed suspicion is that some CU graduates might have parents who are mega successful.
But daddy's success doesn't always transfer to the younger generation.
The younger generation with the trust fund may not throw tens of millions of dollars around like daddy does. Daddy writes tuition checks to CU and big donations to his alma matter.
The kid with the CU diploma has a comfortable job, a nice home, foreign travel, and pursuits more in tune with Boulder values, like spending discretionary cash on enjoying the great outdoors and other quality of life activities. They may prioritize giving to the Red Cross or Peace Corps over the football stadium. CU gets three or four or five figures, not six or seven.
My other working theory is that CU is missing out on petro dollars. State law gives School of Mines permission to crank out petroleum engineers, but not CU. Solich and Benson are the exception. If the voters and politicans knew what was best for CU, they'd allow CU to replicate the the School of Mines curriculum in Boulder.
CU is legally excluded from granting petroleum engineering degrees and is somewhat left out of the world's biggest money industry.
So instead it has to make due churning out lawyers, accountants, astronauts and other government employees, middle managers, technology geeks, and small business owners.
