The existence of a public university depends on the financial support of our citizens via taxes and donations. When legislators allocate funds for public higher education they are making choices on the better use of limited resources. In the competition of the political marketplace a budget for public universities may imply less investment in public welfare, or less investment in K-12 education, or less investment in roads and public transportation. These foregone public projects constitute the social opportunity cost of higher education financed by the State. Public decisions to invest in higher education are undertaken with the expectation that the social benefits of a public university are equal or higher than their opportunity costs.
Similar arguments have to be made for the donations from the private sector.
Those alumni and other individuals who make donations to our university have other opportunities for their charitable works. The faculty, college administrators, the CFA, the Associated Students, and local leaders are always employed in the task of demonstrating that the social worth of investing in a local campus like SSU is equal or higher than its opportunity cost. An appraisal of the social worth of the education delivered by SSU during the last ten years is a complex task. The social benefits include direct and indirect benefits. The direct social benefits of SSU undergraduate programs comprise the private benefits received by its alumni plus the benefits received by the public at large.