Trustee gives $20 million to establish scholarships for middle-class students
An alumnus gift of $20 million that will establish a scholarship program for middle-class Syracuse University students will be announced Friday on the Quad.
SU Trustee Howard ‘Howie’ Phanstiel and wife Louise will commit one of the largest gifts SU has received to create the Phanstiel Grant program. The Louise and Howard Phanstiel Scholar Program is open for middle-class students with U.S. citizenship who have demonstrated potential for academic success and community leadership.
The program will be administered by SU’s Office of Financial Aid and Scholarship Programs and will begin fall 2011.
‘People are starting to recognize, and it’s certainly emphasized in the current economic crisis, that it’s important. That colleges and universities need to provide support to a wide array of students and families across the socioeconomic spectrum,’ said Kevin Quinn, senior vice president for public affairs.
Project P will announce the donation Friday at 3:30 p.m. on the Quad. There will be a barbeque and performance by the SU Marching Band. The event is an opportunity for the university and students to thank the Phanstiels, Quinn said.
The donation was finalized a couple weeks ago, Quinn said. Quinn said there were no specifics on the number of students the scholarship would aid, but that dozens and dozens of students would be helped over the long term.
Adequate funding for middle-class students has been overlooked of late. A July 2009 commentary by former Grinnell College president Russell Osgood in the Chronicle of Higher Education said FAFSA ‘unrealistically overstates what many middle-income families can be expected to pay toward a child’s college education.’
The amount of financial aid the university is able to allocate to students is dependent on the amount of tuition it receives. As the demand for financial aid increases, the amount of students who can pay the full price decreases. This makes it more difficult to fund financial aid.
To determine how much financial aid each student receives, an analysis of families’ financial situations is made to determine how much the university believes a family can contribute toward education, said Don Saleh, vice president of enrollment management.
Some of the data that helps determine how much families can contribute comes from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Other data comes from other forms such as the CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE, which provides the university with most of the data it needs, Saleh said.
The tuition to attend SU minus a family’s potential contribution gives the university an idea of how much financial aid each student should receive.
‘That helps us understand how much aid we should provide to the students,’ he said. ‘Then we build a financial aid reward to meet that need for that student.’
The new scholarship is one opportunity for SU to make college more affordable for middle-class students who are often left with an unrealistic expected contribution.
In addition to providing aid to low-income and first-generation college students, the university also wants to ‘maintain a strong option for students of middle-income backgrounds as well,’ Youlanda Copeland-Morgan, associate vice president of enrollment management and director of scholarships and student aid, said.
Copeland-Morgan said SU has been working to strengthen financial packages for middle-class students, and received an overall 11 percent increase in the financial aid budget. She said federal and state funding has been spread out, which has hurt student funding from outside the university.
As part of the scholarship, students are required to participate in SU’s financial literacy program ‘I Otto Know This!’ and an annual lecture that promotes altruism in the community, as well as submit a one-page personal statement on their philanthropic efforts of the previous year. Mentors will support the award recipients and find ways for the students to service the university and other communities.
The element of fiscal and community responsibility was the Phanstiel’s idea.
‘One of the wonderful things about the Phanstiel’s story is that they did not come from wealthy families. These are hardworking, successful individuals,’ Copeland-Morgan said. ‘So they are very interested in instilling in all students the importance of philanthropy and giving back in whatever way you can.’
Learning to manage finances and give back to the community will help students now and later, she said.
‘Today, it may be that students can give back in time. They may be able to tutor in schools or work with elderly or work with an underprivileged community, giving back in many different forms. And one day of course it’s hoped that they will give back financially when they are at the point in their career that they can do this,’ Copeland-Morgan said.
She said it was important for students to be financially smart, as to know how to manage college finances and those later in life.
This is not the first gift the Phanstiels have given SU.
In 2006, the Phanstiels provided $5 million to the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs for to create the Phanstiel Chair in Strategic Management and Leadership. The Phanstiels also donated $1.2 million to help finance building the Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center, which opened in 2009.
Howie lead a mid-year fundraising effort, ‘Syracuse Responds,’ in 2008 to assist current students at risk of withdrawing because of financial difficulties. The program provided more than $1 million for more than 425 students.
Other significant donations the university has received include $29 million in 2006 from the Frederic Schwartz estate, the largest gift SU has ever received, a $17.5 million gift from the Newhouse family for the construction of Newhouse III and $15 million from the Dineen Family Law School building received in July.
Howie Phanstiel is a 1970 graduate of The College of Arts and Sciences with a degree in political science. He received a Masters of Public Administration degree from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in 1971. He currently serves on SU’s Board of Trustees. Since 2005, he has served on the Maxwell School Advisory Board and has served as one of three co-chairs of the Campaign for Syracuse University since 2007.
Howie was president, CEO and chairman of PacifiCare Health Systems. He retired in 2005 and established Phanstiel Enterprises LLC, a private consulting and investment firm in L.A. with wife Louise.
Louise Phanstiel received a B.A. in Accounting from Golden Gate University and is a former partner of Coopers & Lybrand, now PriceWaterhouse Coopers. She currently serves as a Director of Myriad Genetics, Inc. and as a Director and Vice Chairman of Best Friends Animal Society.
Published on September 30, 2010 at 12:00 pm
