MU breaks fundraising record: here’s why it matters

The University of Missouri is benefiting from a record-breaking fundraising year as the state’s flagship university surpassed its goal by $26 million.

MU Chancellor Alexander Cartwright announced Wednesday the university raised more than $147 million in cash gifts during fiscal year 2018, pushing the university’s fundraising campaign total past the $1 billion mark.

“What we anticipate is, we’ll continue to work with our alumni, work with our friends, talk about the benefits this has for our students, what it means for all of Missouri,” Cartwright told ABC 17 News after the announcement.

While there’s a perception that the university’s financial struggles all stem from the 2015 protests, leaders have said that’s not the case. The bigger long-term problem, they say, is declining state support.

“We have to dispel the use of business as usual. The reason being is that it hasn’t worked. We need a fresh approach. We need to make investments. But we’re going to be doing this in an environment where state support is eroding over the years,” UM System President Mun Choi said at the June UM Board of Curators’ meeting.

Two of the biggest drivers of the university’s budget are tuition and state support. While enrollment did see a significant decline after the protests, leaders have also said that the university can no longer rely so heavily on the state.

“It’s a good budget, but if we think we can replicate this over the next five years and be the university we want to be, it won’t work,” Ryan Rapp vice president for finance and chief financial officer at the University of Missouri System, said at the curators’ meeting last month.

While the fundraising efforts are significant, MU is still looking for ways to save money to fill a $49 million budget gap. As ABC 17 News has previously reported, the university has undergone both an administrative and program review.

“The changes we are making are because of the changes in higher education, and we are moving faster than other universities,” David Steelman, Chair of the UM Board of Curators, said in June. “The changes we are making is because the entire way that public higher education is funded and going to be funded in the future is going to be different because state budgets are under more and more pressure for Medicaid and other funding.”

“In order to do this we have to be bold,” Choi echoed in his president’s report. “We can’t have incremental, timid approaches, otherwise, we’re going to see further erosion in our quest to become excellent.”