Alumni donations are an important source of revenue for colleges and universitie

Question

Alumni donations are an important source of revenue for colleges and universities. If administrators could determine the factors that could lead to increases in the percentage of alumni who make a donation, they might be able to implement policies that could lead to increased revenues. Research shows that students who are more satisfied with their contact with teachers are more likely to graduate. As a result, one might suspect that smaller class sizes and lower student/faculty ratios might lead to a higher percentage of satisfied graduates, which in turn might lead to increases in the percentage of alumni who make a donation. The following table shows data for 48 national universities. The Graduation Rate column is the percentage of students who initially enrolled at the university and graduated. The % of Classes Under 20 column shows the percentages of classes offered with fewer than 20 students. The Student/Faculty Ratio column is the number of students enrolled divided by the total number of faculty. Finally, the Alumni Giving Rate column is the percentage of alumni who made a donation to the university.

1.3. What other independent variables could be included in the model?

Alumni University State Graduation of Classes Student- Under 20 Faculty Ratio Giving Rate Rate Boston College MA 68 Brandeis University MA RI 60 Brown University California Institute of Technology PA 75 Carnegie Mellon University S2 OH Case Western Reserve Univ. 45 12 College of William and Mary VA Columbia University 01 Cornell University NY NH Dartmouth College NC 68 Duke University Emory University GA Georgetown University Harvard University MA Johns Hopkins University MD PA 40 Lehigh University Massachusetts Inst. of Technology New York University NY IL Northwestern University

Explanation / Answer

If the research show that satisfactory contact with teachers is an importatn factor it could be possible to include some measurement of the amount of contact hours between teachers and students.

For example, average number of contact hours per week between students and teachers.

Other option could be to include the ratio between classroom hours and office hours faculty reserve to answer questions one-to-one with students.

We could even include the ratio between lecture hours and laboratory/practical/problem-solving hours, as a measurement of how much do faculty interact with a small group of students.

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