Equity of Degree
Alumni want to know that the value of their degree is higher today than it was when they got the degree and that the university is doing things that will cause that value to be even higher in the future. The definition for value will vary from institution to institution but this theme is very consistent for all of the 135 universities and colleges for which we have data.
For example, at some schools value is about school rank, while at others it is more focused on relationships with faculty or accomplishments of students, and for others it is about campus aesthetics (physical plant). At faith-based institutions the value of the degree is often intertwined with the faith-based or conservative mission of the institution, while at a university like Brandeis the value-of-degree proposition for alumni is strongly related with involvement in political or activist organizations. For law schools, school rank is often the primary driver of their perception of value or equity.
An alumni association director for an institution located in Washington, DC put it well when he noted that, since there are so many lawyers in DC, the attendees at an event for [our] alumni would usually have a fairly high percentage of lawyers in attendance (not necessarily lawyers from our Law School but also undergraduates that got a law degree somewhere else). He often said that within the first 15 minutes of the event he knew (because they made sure to tell him) which alumni had attended law schools that were currently ranked in the top 10%. The alumnus/a owned the “equity” of the current rank regardless of what the rank was when they actually graduated and received their law degree.
We use questions about impact on opinion of the institution and correlation to loyalty and/or intent-to-give as foundational elements within a survey to identify how the equity-of-degree is defined at a given institution and how this definition varies between affinity groups such as generation or college. We can use this information to help target our messaging to those groups in a way that maximizes the impact of that touch-point. We generally use these points as talking-point references in the creation or refinement of editorial boards.
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