[integrate-this]

Correct. Despite this, I choose to donate to my universities because a) when its my children's turn, I want the organization to remember my name, and b) I honestly believe that education is a truly worthwhile pursuit and I want to expand access to, and quality of, education and discovery. PhDs and grad students may be a bunch of blowhards but they drive a lot of innovation.

[logfromblammo]

> when its my children's turn, I want the organization to remember my name

When it's time for my children, I want the organization that will be teaching them about professional and ethical conduct in the real world to not only not be corrupt, but also demonstrably free of all prejudicial biases in the applications process.

Which is to say, I want my children to be assigned a randomized identifier and their personally identifiable information anonymized, before their application is given to an admissions officer, so that irrelevant qualifications like the amount of money parent alumni have given to the organization are not and cannot be used for an admit/no-admit decision.

I'm fine with your kid getting a 2nd-floor room in the posh dormitory, and first bite at class scheduling. You can pay for additional conveniences, but not to deny someone else an opportunity earned by their own hard work.

[integrate-this]

Well, okay, so I should stop donating to the scholarship fund then? If alumni stopped donating then quality of education or number of students would have to go down.

If my kids aren't going to get preferential status then there is no reason to be a sponsor of that institution over any other.

Given that your top comment is, "I don't understand why people donate to Universities," I'm not sure that you're in a great position to say that others shouldn't receive priority admission. If everyone did what you did then our University system would collapse.