Class gifts to be reinstated for the class of 2025

On Thursday, Lehigh seniors will visit Grace Hall to pick up their caps and gowns during Senior Salute, an annual celebration for graduates. 

As they take part in the send-off, which is organized by the Office of Development and Alumni Relations in partnership with the Lehigh Store, seniors will notice the return of a once-paused tradition — the senior class gift. 

Senior class gifts are monetary donations made by a graduating class to their university, and they’re customary at many institutions. At Lehigh, class gifts date back to as early as 1938 and have traditionally formed endowments, which have supported projects like the Taylor Gym renovation, class scholarships and financial aid.

Suspended in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, the senior class gift will return for the class of 2025. However, it will be re-envisioned as “The Lehigh Promise,” a four-part commitment accompanied by a new mission and giving structure, according to a document shared with The Brown and White by the Office of Development and Alumni Relations. 

Joseph Volturo, ‘02, the director of the Lehigh Fund, said when he began considering how to revive the class gift after a five-year hiatus, he knew it would need to be remodeled to resonate with current students. 

“If we’re going to do something, we have to make sure it’s looking at it from a holistic approach,” Volturo said. “How can future alumni benefit from this? What is the goal? What are we going to ask them to be doing?” 

To answer these questions, Volturo said he organized student committees made up of all class years that met regularly over three to six months. He said these committees drove the decision to shift the gift from a single donation to a four-dimensional, five-year promise. 

“This class and these students today, they’re taking this on,” Volturo said. “They’re coming up with a new way to approach this.” 

According to the document shared by the Office of Development and Alumni Relations, at the Senior Salute, the office will ask seniors to sign the Promise — a non-binding annual pledge for the first five years after graduation. The Promise centers on four pillars: connections, meaning building relationships with Lehigh’s alumni network; involvement, meaning attending at least one Lehigh event; traditions, meaning participating in at least one tradition; and investment, meaning donating $20 per year. 

Volturo said the Promise was created to strengthen connections among recent graduates to build an alumni network comparable to those of Princeton University and Pennsylvania State University, as well as to fundraise to improve the experiences of future classes. 

“It seemed like if we could do this, it could change the game,” Volturo said. “If you had a good time, and you got a good job, and you feel like $20 a year is doable, when you combine it with all those other people, it could make a big impact.” 

The plaque pictured commemorates a gift from the Class of 1987. While class gifts have been a Lehigh tradition since at least 1937, this year they are being reimagined as the ‘Lehigh Promise.’ (Amadea Lehoczky Escobar/B&W Staff)

According to the document shared with The Brown and White, the class will be asked to donate $20 beginning one year after graduation and that will continue until their five-year reunion. The contribution will be split evenly between a student’s selected area, such as an athletics team, student club or academic department, and the Lehigh Promise Fund, an endowment that will support financial aid and scholarships for future students. 

“Financial aid is going to remain a top priority,” Volturo said. “If we want to get the best students from around the world, regardless of whether they can afford it or not, we need to raise the money to get them here. We also have to support them once they’re here.” 

He said contributions to the Promise Fund will accrue interest until the endowment reaches a set payout threshold that has yet to be determined. 

Meredith Purcell, ‘25, vice president of the Association of Student Alumni, said the association is facing challenges in developing the Promise. 

“The biggest struggle we’re running into is how to market and educate people, because some people are like, ‘Oh, (I don’t need to donate), I’m not on financial aid, I pay full price,’” she said. “But really, no one pays full price.” 

The annual cost of educating a single Lehigh student is $102,000 — tens of thousands more than the $82,000 sticker price of tuition and housing, according to the document shared with The Brown and White by the Office of Development and Alumni Relations. 

Lehigh’s budget — which covers this gap and supports financial aid, which totaled $154.1 million in 2024 — is funded through a combination of tuition and fees (59.3%), investment earnings (14.6%), auxiliary room and board (9.4%), and additional revenue streams, according to the university’s financial report. 

Purcell said the institution has grown uneasy about its financial position due to rising costs, uncertainty around federal funding and a decline in donations from young alumni. 

“A global trend that is going around universities is that their younger alums are not donating as much as their older alums, and their older alums are dying,” Purcell said. 

According to a survey sponsored by the Schuler Education Foundation, 37 institutions have seen a sharp decrease in giving among young alumni over the past 20 years, with average participation dropping to single digits.

Purcell said the Association of Student Alumni has discussed this decline and speculates it’s a consequence of the pandemic and ongoing financial pressures. 

“Young alums attended Lehigh during COVID, so maybe they didn’t have as fulfilling of an experience,” Purcell said. “A lot have debt, so they may not have an extra $100 to give because the cost of college is so expensive.” 

In light of this, Purcell said she and the Office of Development and Alumni Relations “try to educate young alums by saying, ‘As long as you donate, it matters, no matter how much.’” 

After the class gift tradition was paused, the percentage of graduating students donating to Lehigh dropped from 41% in 2019 to 17% in 2020, and it has remained at 5% since, according to data shared with The Brown and White by the Office of Development and Alumni Relations. 

Volturo said the goal of restoring the class gift, with an amended design, is to strengthen young alumni’s connection to Lehigh, which will also bolster Lehigh’s financial position in the years ahead.

Sophie Marino, ‘25, said while she was initially hesitant to donate to her alma mater as a young alum before achieving financial stability, she appreciates that the Lehigh Promise only asks for a $20 contribution. 

“I think (the Promise) will resonate with our class,” Marino said. “The novelty might make it tough to get people initially, but Lehigh has a strong community, and people would be willing to give back.” 

Volturo said while the focus is to encourage the class of 2025 to participate, the initiative will also be open to other alumni and anyone else who wishes to contribute. He said the plan is for subsequent graduating classes to commit to the Promise as well, further developing a strong young alumni network and growing the Lehigh Promise Fund. 

However, since the Promise is a new program, Volturo said all of these details are subject to change based on feedback from the class of 2025 at the Senior Salute. He said the department hasn’t begun formal marketing yet and is instead referring to its presence at the Salute as a “soft launch.” 

Volturo said while he hopes students will participate in the Promise, its success depends on students shaping it themselves rather than administrators imposing their ideas. 

“Could you imagine this is successful and other schools are coming to us to be like, ‘How did you guys do this?’” Volturo said. “And I’d be like, ‘Ask (the students). Ask them what’s valuable about it. They built this thing. They built it for them so that we who work here can actually serve them, advance their careers and add value to their lives.”