The amount that the Campaign for Washington University raised-$1.55 billion-is staggering. To call the campaign successful would be an understatement.
Everyone involved in this effort deserves high praise for his or her commitment to the University. But one man, David Blasingame, was so instrumental in the campaign that the University promoted him to executive vice chancellor for alumni and development programs in recognition of his leadership.
Blasingame’s story is a truly rags-to-riches one, though in this case, the riches belong to the University. He did not have the financial resources to pay out-of-pocket for an education here, but luckily, the University gave him a full ride.
For its help, Blasingame paid the University back many times over. He told the Record that he was “very grateful for the scholarship support,” leading him to “help do for others what had been done for me.”
Certainly, the University’s investment in a rural Arkansan proved wise. Which begs the question, How many other Blasingames are out there?
The problem is that undergraduate admissions are not fully need-blind. For want of money, a student just like Blasingame may have been turned down for the class of 2008. By turning away some of the neediest students, the University is not capitalizing on a segment of the applicant pool that is likely to be most grateful for financial support. And, like we saw with Blasingame, people tend to act on their gratitude.
Of course, there is the simple principle that the University should be a strict meritocracy, where wealth has no place even in the smallest fraction of admissions decisions. Few excuses remain for this anachronistic policy.
We are the fourth richest university in the country, and we just got $1.5 billion richer. Surely, we now have the means to make admissions 100 percent need-blind, while simultaneously meeting 100 percent of all students’ demonstrated need.
The University’s $6,800 investment on Blainsgame’s education yieleded a $1.55-billion return. Proportionately, a similar investment today in a hard-working, lower-income student would net $26.7 billion in the future. No market investment can match that rate of return.