SMU to Launch 3rd Comprehensive Campaign in September 2021

[AfricanMustang]

At its May meeting, the Board of Trustees approved moving forward with the University’s third comprehensive fundraising campaign.

https://sites.smu.edu/e/21/Leadership/F ... ay2021.pdf

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

Great.

[deucetz]

I hope they focus on the endowment, scholarships, and research. You have to beat out better-ranked universities by making it more affordable for students.

[horsemanx]

I hope we don't put the campaign logo on our football field!

[ponyboy]

To this day, I still cannot understand why universities gather and waste so much money.

[mustangxc]

I hope they focus on the endowment, scholarships, and research. You have to beat out better-ranked universities by making it more affordable for students.

I agree 100%. I went to private school most of my life and can honestly say I would never even consider private school nowadays. Tuition is so out of control that I could never justify burning my money on a worse investment. Public school and university is the only way to go nowadays. Making SMU more affordable is the most pressing need. All those ridiculous buildings have only served to make schools a terribly overpriced expenditure that really adds very little to your professional career.

[kc711]

I hope they focus on the endowment, scholarships, and research. You have to beat out better-ranked universities by making it more affordable for students.

I agree 100%. I went to private school most of my life and can honestly say I would never even consider private school nowadays. Tuition is so out of control that I could never justify burning my money on a worse investment. Public school and university is the only way to go nowadays. Making SMU more affordable is the most pressing need. All those ridiculous buildings have only served to make schools a terribly overpriced expenditure that really adds very little to your professional career.

Respectfully asking which of the following facilities should not have been built (or should not be built in the future): Science building built in 1997(?), all three new engineering buildings, Gerald Ford Research building, the school of eduction buildings, the Moody Graduate Research building, the renovation of the business school buildings (including stoping the flooding of some of those buildings following heavy rains) and the proposed additions to those buildings, the Football stadium, renovation of Moody, the new natatorium, the tennis center, the golf practice facility, and the new soccer stadium. Of all the athletic facilities, I think the only ones not fully paid for by philanthropy are the tennis center and soccer stadium. Additionally, I think all of the academic buildings I mentioned have been fully funder by philanthropy.

[mustangxc]

$30,000 a year for a private high school and $56,560 for a private university (SMU) is ridiculous. Even after aid, the average cost of SMU is $37,000 which is still ridiculous. Figuring out a way to curb the cost of tuition is much more pressing than buildings. If anything the old buildings helped teach us tolerance and how to work with scarce resources.

[tristatecoog]

If a kid can get into UT and only spend $27k with on campus housing, that’s a super deal, especially for a kid with the confidence to fight their way forward to be seen. A upper middle class friend of mine has a son who chose SMU engineering over A&M. Costs were about $8k more at SMU but nice room and board and plugged in with smaller classes. Lots of career services and academic support as well.

[PonyTime]

$30,000 a year for a private high school and $56,560 for a private university (SMU) is ridiculous. Even after aid, the average cost of SMU is $37,000 which is still ridiculous. Figuring out a way to curb the cost of tuition is much more pressing than buildings. If anything the old buildings helped teach us tolerance and how to work with scarce resources.

If you care about what your kids are being taught at school, $30k for private High School is well worth it IMO. And if you make wise choices in middle and High School (curriculum and academics), college should be far less expensive than what you are quoting.

But I agree - it would be ridiculous to pay anywhere near full price for college at somewhere like SMU.

[ponyboy]

I have four kids. Half a million dollars for high school is out of the question.

[Water Pony]

I have two observations/questions.

#1 Can increasing the size of our undergraduate student body be a factor to consider? Could we reasonably lower the cost of attending and spread out our infrastructure / overhead costs with a larger enrollment?

# 2 The cost of attending SMU negatively impacts our non-revenue sports. Most of these teams rely on few scholarships, often splitting aid with half scholarship or perhaps looking for academic considerations. Otherwise, student-athlete families are faced with bad financial options or go to state schools.

[tristatecoog]

#1 Can increasing the size of our undergraduate student body be a factor to consider? Could we reasonably lower the cost of attending and spread out our infrastructure / overhead costs with a larger enrollment?

Purdue and A&M are doing this. Purdue has an incoming class of 10,000+, built more dorms and hired 150 new professors. A&M has a lot of land. Rice is also increasing its student body to attract more OOS students. It's taking four years to increase its incoming classes from 750 to ~1000. UT has kept enrollment rather flat and its rankings are improving quite a bit.

SMU just built a new dorm on Daniel St. for transfer students (helps enrollment and graduation rates). The university knows that it needs to focus on financial aid and especially at the Pell Grant level for ranking purposes. Its making strides but had a ways to go.

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

Oh great. We got a new logo too. Somebody got paid a whole lot of money for this!



https://blog.smu.edu/smumagazine/2021/07/a-dynamic-new-direction/

A dynamic new direction
Take a look at the new SMU logo. It’s the result of a community collaboration to create a new logo that reflects who we are – a bold, vibrant University leaning into the future.

While the University’s logo has been redesigned periodically throughout its history, this was not a change made hastily. The endeavor began in 2019 with the Bright marketing agency in parallel with our efforts for the launch of SMU’s third comprehensive fundraising campaign this fall.

[tristatecoog]

Looks like a decent logo.

SMU’s third comprehensive campaign kickoff event will be Friday, September 17 at noon on the Main Quad. All Mustang families are invited to attend.