As you were saying earlier the endowment game is largely a function of age because older schools have alumni from different eras that come out of wood work for large gifts. Ohio is a perfect example of this with a 115 million dollar gift to the engineering school from someone who graduated in the 1940's. His fortune was largely the result of being at the ground floor of R&D companies back in the 1950's so point here is that it takes some historical right place at the right time situation to have that kind of money sitting around. Wright State was started in the 1960's and nobody from that engineering school ever had the same magnitude of opportunity. The question is who is our modern day Russ? I had no idea but Bobcat Matt Lauer who we all know is on the Today Show makes 25 million dollars a year. He's the highest paid media celebrity and makes 2 times more a year than Anderson Cooper. Its time to get the Lauer Center for Performing Arts on line ASAP. Glidden tried to raise money for it but he thought the 10 million dollar private donation was out of reach. He said Memorial Auditorium was alright for some performances but didn't work for others. Since he was PhD in Music I'll largely take his word on the inadequacy.

 

I don't have a link but I can tell you that 20 years ago Ohio was much higher in the USNWR rankings and right around where Michigan State and Virginia Tech in those days. The school has gradually slipped backwards in the rankings every year after before listed as a Top 100 school. This is at the same that athletics at Ohio began to be ran as a serious Division 1 institution with proper branding and commitment levels. The schools that have gone up the most in those rankings have benefited from high growth states which causes a sharp uptick in the student profile. The population in Ohio has been stagnant with high tuition costs for instate residents. What's happened is that Ohio has held steady in student profile since the 90's but they've increased the freshman class from 3200 to 4000 at that time which has hurt some of the other schools in the state nailed with falling demand. There have been huge cutbacks at schools like Bowling Green and Akron with a very low percentage of full time faculty.The driver in Ohio is cost pressure not football. First it hit the private schools in the 80's and then the publics in the 2000's forcing Ohio to expand to keep the budget upright. Kent State also survived by growth and absorbed a students that were heading to BG or Akron before.

How does this relate to football? All state legislatures want to have at least one nationally prominent research university, more if its a high population state. Ohio State was founded for that purpose and by having that stature it was what allowed the school to get into the Big Ten where Michigan was with an 82,000 seat stadium built in 1927. However, Ohio State had top tier football for 100 years yet until about 2 decades ago was an open admission school. Ohio and Miami had better student profiles historically but OSU cut down the freshman class size to 6,000 for a 57,000 student school (letting others transfer in) and it helps to be the only public school in the growing Columbus market. Over half of the student body is from Columbus so it has traditionally more an urban school even though its in the Big Ten. It doesn't hurt Columbus has been the fastest growing metro area Ohio for several decades, doubling in population since 1980. Highly successful and expanding business community has led to a huge endowment at that school. The endowment and football really didn't have anything to do with Ohio State's academic reputation which was perceived as poor outside of Columbus. At Ohio the endowment is more of a direct reflection of the long academic tradition at the school with a non-existent local business community and academic reputation is why its done so well in recruiting students despite location in the far corner of the state. Students read about the programs, they visit a campus ranked in the Top 10 nationally and that Ohio University brand. Ohio's endowment is pretty close after the latest fundraising drive to Maryland and Rutgers two schools entering the Big Ten with much larger enrollments. Maryland isn't synergyistic with the DC business community like OSU is in Columbus that's why the smaller endowment. In fact its an afterthought really and many people have never been there. I live as the crow flies 10 miles from campus and have never walked it. Why they are rated Top 50 in the USNWR report and Ohio is rated #135 I have no clue. USNWR uses a limited set of criteria that doesn't take into consider the state demographics or the selection process at a school. Its a very poor evaluation tool.

If there is a lot of information why Ohio will have no chance to move up, can you please point me in the right direction? As I would like to read up on that.

 

I guess the main reason for thinking that is that the only schools ever to leave the MAC are ones that enter on what is pretty well known to be a temporary basis anyway.

Sure we can move up. The problem here is finding large sum of money to expand the stadium to 40,000 seats. The donors for the athletic department just aren't there. The athletic department is banking the future on marketing income. The want to build an academic performance center which retail at about 4 million and are selling the naming rights of the football and basketball stadiums to pay for it. Marketing income is also unrestricted unlike donor income. The Walter family gave 10 million towards an Indoor Practice Facility but that is payable over 20 years. I'm pretty sure we lead the MAC in marketing income and with a couple of BCS runs the media deal with IMG could skyrocket. The donor relationship here is also backwards compared to other schools even some in the MAC. Normally an athletic donor is someone in the community (usually not an alum) who from liking the product on the field, decides to up the seat donation and if they have the money a good sized donation to the program. At Ohio its more an alum who loves the school and is giving to the college decides to give homecoming a shot. Then once they go for a few homecoming games and realize they can get better seats with season tickets they do that. They don't start giving huge contributions to the athletic department because of sending money to the school already. Instead of athletics leading to more university donations, university donations are leading to more support of athletics. The local business community is buying ad space to support the program over direct contributions. Toledo and Marshall have larger communities where dedicated non-alumni fans who just care about athletics will lay out money for the department. Ohio has the Bobcat Club and if you donate 10,000 you can join the team on an away game but I don't know if anybody is doing it. Donor levels are near the bottom of the MAC while attendance is at the top.

http://issuu.com/dossakow/docs/ohiobobcatclubbrochure?e=4... style="font-size: 12px;">

Its not that Ohio's stats are dipping. The class profile is as strong as ever. What's happened is these SEC schools raised a ton of money over the last decade for scholarships and are buying up students left and right. So far Ohio's put its endowment into operations and buildings over scholarships. They are trying to make sure the campus is renovated first. With all the 441 million raised in the last 2 years 79% of that money  to go to academics and scholarships so I expect to see the class profile leap forward over the next couple of years. 

http://www.ohio.edu/campaign/about/index.cfm>

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Most Memorable Bobcat Events Attended
2010 97-83 win over Georgetown in NCAA 1st round
2012 45-13 victory over ULM in the Independence Bowl
2015 34-3 drubbing of Miami @ Peden front of 25,086

 

others have talked about UC.  I know for a fact they used to be a Tier 3 school but they have recently rocketed up the rankings.  Again, say what you want about mortgaging the future with their spending, but bottom line is they used to be nowhere near OHIO and soon they will pass us up in the rankings.  I know for a fact their cohort of frosh is light years ahead of where it was 10 years ago.  They are really going after higher quality students and scholars.