So the economists have demonstrated that half the giving by parents of children who are applying is self interested.

Great. I like the analysis. But the conclusion really doesn't explain much of the pattern of donations that makes the American university system unlike most in the world, and it doesn't give too much help to certain people who believe that anyone not giving the way they want you to is doing so for selfish reasons.

First, there are many reasons why people with children may give more - a forward looking attitude, more interest in tradition, more concern about future generations. It has been well demonstrated that liberals talk more about charity and conservatives donate a vastly higher proportion of their income. This is only one example - people who are conservative are more likely to be raising children. They are also probably more likely to encourage them to go to the school they themselves attended, especially if it is a good school.

Then there is the issue of 'what do the best schools need more money for?' This is a very liberal phrasing of a Pharisaical statement. It is the phrase that encourages towns to raid the local university for 'payment in lieu of taxes' which is blackmail by another name. It is the phrase that encourages unionization at places where unions don't belong. It is the phrase that suggests that higher education is actually a waste of money, and doing things poorly everywhere is better than doing them well, anywhere.

We need to recognize that there are certain types of research that can only occur at top universities, and often many other kinds occur most efficiently at these schools, and that these schools, particularly the private ones, need huge sums to keep doing this. Even now, they draw far too much from the government, corrupting their mission; unfortunately, big government has become seemingly inescapable, though some brave institutions try to do without federal funding. This funding ends up being the handle by which ideologically motivated arm-twisting (blackmail by the government, again) occurs to warp the intellectual endeavor.

In the end, it isn't explaining the money given prior to application that is hard - though measuring the self interest is good social science - but it is explaining all the rest that matters. Not the huge donations either, but the little ones, that get little recognition.

Hi Ben:

You know the Brooks's study has some flaws in it which skew the findings?

Your right, let's abolish unions "where they don't belong". Let's just become the chinese and pay everyone $8 a day. That'll really solve our economic issues.