The relationship between alumni giving and receipt of institutional scholarships among undergraduate students at a public, land-grant institution
Open Access
- Author:
- Diehl, Abigail G.
- Graduate Program:
- Higher Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- October 01, 2007
- Committee Members:
- Robert M Hendrickson, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Donald Heller, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Lisa Lattuca, Committee Member
Jon F Nussbaum, Committee Member - Keywords:
- scholarships
giving
alumni
university - Abstract:
- This study examines the relationship between alumni giving and receipt of institutional scholarships at a public research university. The study analyzed student and alumni records of 17,418 alumni who graduated from The Pennsylvania State University between (and including) December 2000 and August 2003. The study’s conceptual framework was modeled after Volkwein’s (1989; 1998) Conceptual Model of Alumni Gift-Giving Behavior, in which four key constructs contribute to alumni giving: demographic background, academic and social integration, capacity to give, and motivation to give. Variable within each of these constructs were tested in order to determine which contribute to two dependent variables: giving (a dichotomous variable) and amount of giving (a continuous variable). Both logistic and ordinary least squares regression analyses were employed to determine which factors are related to giving. Of the demographic variables, gender and family income influenced the decision to make a gift but not the amount of giving and year of graduation was significant in four of the five models. Of the academic and social integration variables, number of student activities, grade-point average, and academic college, were predictive of both giving and the amount of giving. Amount of loan debt, the single capacity to give variable, was not predictive of either giving or the amount of giving. Within the motivation to give construct, the primary variables of interest were scholarship receipt and scholarship amount. Scholarship receipt was found to impact the decision to make a gift but not the size of the gift. The amount of scholarships received impacts both giving and the amount of giving. Alumni Association membership, the third motivation to give variable, was the most predictive of all of the variables in the study, impacting both giving and the amount of giving. Further analysis is recommended in order to develop a comprehensive portrait of aid receipt as a predictor of alumni giving, to determine if particular types of aid receipt result in giving to particular areas within the university, to determine whether the conceptual model’s predictive ability could be improved with the addition or subtraction of variables, and to determine if the relationship between aid receipt and giving differs based on college or university characteristics.