$10 Million Goal:
Who Will Benefit, and How  

In Support of the WSC Mission

Opportunity for a Lifetime: A Campaign for the Future of Worcester State College seeks $10 million to fulfill our vision of a thriving, responsive, accessible, and financially stable institution that enables students to realize their aspirations and contribute to the economic vitality and cultural richness of the Commonwealth. For many of our students and alumni, the possibility of realizing their aspirations once seemed beyond their reach due to financial limitations, personal circumstances, or other challenges. Our mission is to bring them closer to their dreams. They do the rest.

Scholarships: $4 million

Typically, our students juggle the competing demands of academic studies, work, and family. Through diligence, perseverance, and an occasional helping hand, they can excel. For many, financial assistance tips the balance in their favor, making it possible to stay on track academically. The stories we hear from our scholarship students tell of determination to overcome a host of factors that conspire to keep them from achieving their dreams. Many of them must work their way to a degree by holding down multiple jobs.

Scholarship funds meet the needs of a wide range of students and situations. They open the doors to WSC for incoming freshmen and transfer students. They help retain a student whose financial condition has changed. Scholarships provide crucial assistance when students face extenuating circumstances or need one-time assistance to bridge a short-term gap. They also strengthen our student community by rewarding merit and achievement and by aiding legacy students—the children of alumni. Scholarships often play a crucial role for non-traditional students, those resuming college studies after an interruption to work or raise children, and those just beginning their college studies in adulthood.

Unlike private institutions, our low tuition and fees do not allow us to dedicate operating funds to scholarship aid. So when our fees—as low as they are—are beyond a student’s means, private philanthropy must step in.

Endowment: $3 million

Endowment is a permanently invested pool of money that generates steady income for WSC, year after year, regardless of decisions made on Beacon Hill. Without an adequate endowment, the College would either stagnate or impose ever-higher fees that would exclude many eager and capable students.

WSC derives a mere 43% of our operating revenue from state funding — a proportion that has declined steadily in the last two decades as costs have risen and state appropriations have dwindled. In fiscal year 2007, Massachusetts ranked 46th in state appropriations ($155 per capita) for public higher education and is falling behind major competitor states. The state decreased its per capita tax appropriations for public higher education by 28% between FY2000 and FY2004, and gradually increased funding during FY2005–2007, but funding remains 9% below FY2000 levels, adjusted for inflation. Among Massachusetts’ competitor states during FY2000–07, comparable funding increased by 32% in New York, 24% in New Jersey, and 15% in California.*

While our administrators and trustees advocate strongly to maximize state funding, the College cannot rely solely on public funding for financial security or to drive the growth and improvements that will benefit our students and our community. It behooves us to broaden and expand stable sources of revenue. The endowment provides such stability. The Opportunity for a Lifetime campaign seeks $3 million in additional gifts to grow our endowment.

* Boston Indicators Project

Academic Development: $3 million

To properly prepare students for productive and satisfying lives and to meet employers’ expectations, our academic programs must be up-to-date and relevant. That means faculty are current in their disciplines; that they are equipped with the technology students will actually use in the workforce; and that the College’s curriculum adapts to shifting workforce and community needs.

Academic research is no longer the sole purview of large universities. When faculty have opportunities to pursue scholarly and applied research and share their work at conferences and symposia, they are more effective teachers. They remain at the forefront of their disciplines and engage students in the work of discovery, achieving far more than a transfer of knowledge.

Frequently, undergraduate students are active collaborators in research, gaining hands-on experience that is invaluable on a resume or graduate school application. They are also direct beneficiaries of guest speakers, international lecturers, foreign study, and internship opportunities. Expanding these programs through this campaign will extend education far beyond the classroom to enhance our students’ awareness and career readiness.

Gifts for academic development will provide funds for ongoing professional development, scholarly and applied research, guest speakers, curriculum renewal, modernization of equipment and library materials, and new initiatives. These efforts are central to keeping the College’s teaching up-to-date, to recruiting and retaining excellent faculty, and to attracting talented, ambitious students. The Opportunity for a Lifetime campaign seeks $3 million for academic development initiatives.