Huessman named Head Coach of Richmond........

[Ruckus]

Wofford is trying to grow its endowment to fund all athletic scholarships in perpetuity. Tall order but smart play. Only way we can stay competitive in D1 over the long haul IMO.

[youngterrier]

Yep. Considering what we do with our small endowment, it's pretty impressive.

The fact that we're in the same sentence (often times beating) Furman in a number of fields when we have 1/3 the endowment is impressive in itself.

[woffordgrad94]

What exactly is endowment? And exactly why is Wofford's so small? And does a larger endowment make for a better overall school? Or does it only affect athletics?

[Ruckus]

In simple terms (which is the only way I can understand it), endowment is like cash in the bank. The more money you have in the bank, the more money you can make off the interest from that money. So to fully endow a schollie at WoCo means you have to give so much cash that it earns enough interest to pay the cost of tuition for the one schollie ($55,000 currently). As I understand it it's about $1.3 million dollars currently for one endowed scholarship. There is little to no "discretion" to use the endowed money for anything that is not specified by the donor and the money almost never used for general operating expenses of the college.
Right now (and historically), we rely on T Club donations to supplement/fund athletic scholarships but trying to raise $1.5M - $2M a year is seen a not being sustainable long term.

[dude]

The size of endowment affects colleges in tons of ways. It's money they can draw to pay for athletics, but also academic programs, grounds, scholarships, professors' salaries, and so on. Wofford historically outperformed as a school, overall, by having talented leaders, dedicated staff, a lot of loyalty/respect in South Carolina (which was very much the geographic "footprint" for many years...it is growing now).

It's endowment has been way smaller than most highly regarded liberal arts schools. Now, that's not to say that Wofford hasn't benefitted from generous philanthropy. Mr. Milliken did tons for the school. The Richardsons...Gibbs....and others. But Milliken did not contribute much to the endowment -- money in the bank -- and Wofford is still behind in that area.

Of course, when a school depends on endowment earnings to meet its budget, that can have a downside. It can be hurt by fluctuations in the stock market. That happened to Wofford in 2008-2009, and some people at the college lost their jobs, including some maintenance workers who could probably least afford it.

[walliver]

Our entire endowment was invested in Confederate War Bonds late during the war.

If the South ever rises again we'll be rich.