Anyone who has ventured onto the University of Oregon campus has undoubtedly noticed one name adorning various buildings: Knight.
From the Matthew Knight Arena to the Knight Campus, the specter of Nike co-founder and multi-billionaire Phil Knight looms large over the school, thanks to his donations totaling over $1 billion — but how much power do donors like him really wield over the university?
UO receives less state funding per student than any other Oregon public university, receiving only $5,647 per fundable student compared to Oregon State University’s $11,580. As a result, the school relies more heavily on student tuition and “gift money” — otherwise known as private donations.
From 2010-2021, the university raked in $3.2 billion worth of donations from 147,081 donors, only 70 of whom donated over $5 million. This small group of large-sum donors decides what to fund and, as an extent, what to value, shaping the UO’s budget for academics, athletics and infrastructure.
Notably, donors can choose where their gift money goes.
While they can’t control precise expenditures or the output created from their gift, UO donors can designate their donation to a specific program or area of study.
As a result, the university’s priorities rely increasingly on the whims of donors. It can be difficult to find funding for the issues that don’t attract philanthropists’ interest, such as building upkeep or worker’s wages.
“Passively, through more negligence than malice, faculty have fallen multiple rungs down the school’s list of priorities,” Mike Urbancic, a senior instructor II of economics and the president of the United Academics union, said.
Currently, Urbancic is leading unionized UO faculty in negotiations with the administration for fairer pay, an issue rarely addressed by donors.
“Maintaining things just isn’t as flashy as building something new and shiny,” Urbancic said. “It doesn’t burnish the resume of the upper administrators, who want something impressive to highlight to donors — it’s difficult to convince donors that what we really need is to maintain existing operations.”
The need to justify improvements to donors leads to increasing privatization, as more money is funneled into lucrative or flashy endeavors that reflect the donor’s personal interests.
This systemic neglect of mundane maintenance is visible in instances like the delayed demolition of dorms containing asbestos or the closure of the useful but unprofitable American English Institute.
This privatization also impacts instructors, and, as a result, the curricula of students’ classes. “Everything boils down to fees,” Jon Jaramillo, a career instructor of Spanish, said.
“Our department pays the university to use classrooms for special events, and then there’s facility and parking fees. There are so many little things that are designed to suck money out of people,” Jaramillo said. “We also have some administrators managing this educational institution who come directly from the corporate world. They are used to focusing on the bottom line, so they apply those same techniques of operating a business to the university, which stifles innovation and creativity.”
Of course, the donor system has its benefits. As a lifelong Oregon resident, I acknowledge that donations from rich and powerful philanthropists have given me access to a higher caliber of education than I would otherwise receive — however, if my interests don’t align with the subjects that donors deem fit to fund, I will struggle to pursue my passions as budget cuts may decimate my discipline’s programs, faculty and opportunities.
Some students have already felt limited by their majors’ lack of funding. “The history department has been chronically underfunded in the UO,” David Reynaud, a sophomore history major, said. “McKenzie Hall is in dire need of repairs compared to many of its better funded counterparts. Its outdated design, poor maintenance, and limited classroom size has proven detrimental to my and other students’ learning.”
This issue of privatization is more pressing now than ever, as private interests increasingly intertwine with the function of public institutions. President Trump has assembled the richest administration in American history, appointing 13 billionaires to positions of power in his cabinet. We live in an era where magnates control our government — do we want them controlling our universities as well?
