I believe Oberlin is a great school, just as good, if not better than, any other school in the country. It attracts top faculty and top students. It’s a terrific place to teach. Yet Oberlin faces huge challenges if it is to remain accessible and affordable for the next generation of prospective Obies. In a world where knowledge is exploding exponentially, the cost of delivering a top-flight education is rising much faster than the consumer price index. And compared to other leading colleges like Amherst, Grinnell, Swarthmore, and Williams, Oberlin has a small endowment per student. This hurts us “on the ground” – we can’t offer all the programs we would like to – and in the flawed but influential U.S. News rankings.

But you can do something about that.

The number of alumni who give to Oberlin is called the participation percentage. The higher that percentage is, the higher Oberlin’s place in college rankings and the more money Oberlin can get from outside funders like grantmaking organizations, because that alumni giving percentage is how college rankings and outside funders measure alumni satisfaction. Raising the participation percentage isn’t hard: if three hundred people make a gift to The Oberlin Alumni Fund, that’s one point. Be one of those people. If just half the people reading this letter make a gift, that would raise Oberlin’s participation percentage by six points, and we’d reach 40 percent participation for the first time in a long time. As a bonus, your gift to The Oberlin Alumni Fund provides crucial financial aid, ensuring that Oberlin can continue to meet 100 percent of demonstrated financial need for all enrolled students.

I'm offering this challenge to young alums in the hope that it will spur folks like you to make a gift that you may have considered making but have never actually sent in. I also hope you'll learn a little more (I am a teacher, after all) about why Oberlin does fundraise, and just how much impact all your gifts - large and small - can make together.

- Professor X