Philanthropic Funding in Higher Education: Carrot and/or Stick

This paper explored the impact of philanthropic funding on institutions of higher education. In the past, most philanthropic gifts to colleges and universities were undertaken to benefit society. However, today this type of giving has evolved into funding organizations with political agendas which take advantage of harsh economic realities in order to drastically influence the changing landscape of our institutions of higher education. Specifically, several major topics were covered: (a) historical background, (b) philanthropy and business initiatives, (c) today's venture philanthropy, (d) Massive Open Online Courses and (e) the impact of these factors on students in higher education. The paper concludes with a discussion of what happened at the University of Virginia last June and why it happened - when politics, power, and philanthropic givers combined in an attempted to remove Teresa Sullivan as the university's president. These are dangerous times where profitability is highly valued; we must remain vigilant.