Corporate Sponsorship of College Classes: Taco Bell Physics, Anyone?

For decades, collegiate sports programs and facilities have looked to the private sector for financing and fundraising resources. Corporate sponsorship -- including naming rights to arenas and signage contracts -- is a generally accepted method of funding. College athletic directors point to these "corporate partnerships" and claim that, without such external investment, scholarships, facility maintenance, and more might have to be scaled back or eliminated altogether. Boise State basketball is played in Taco Bell Arena; Texas Tech football at Jones AT&T Stadium; University of San Diego basketball at Jenny Craig Pavilion.

But can you imagine an Ernst and Young accounting course? Or a Pfizer nursing course? Or even just Joe Schmoe's Chemistry Lab?

Apparently, San Francisco Community College's Chancellor Don Griffin does. Due to the state's budget issues, about 800 classes are set to be eliminated next year, and Griffin, with few options on the table, resolved to approach the problem with business savvy. He said as much during an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle on June 22. His sales pitch: "If you want to pay for one class at City College, it's $6,000 ... And if you designate it for that class, we'll make sure the class is reinstated, and we'll put your name on it."

No more than 24 hours later, the Chronicle article (and Griffin's quote) was being buzzed about in education circles nationwide -- and Chancellor Griffin had some explaining to do. Apparently, he didn't inform the Board of Trustees of such a plan, and they were not happy when they learned about the proposal from their morning paper. Milton Marks, president of the Board, told the Chronicle, "Public education is not for sale ... If someone wants to give money, that's great. But getting publicity or feel-good points shouldn't be necessary. It smacks of some sort of paternalism."

Whether course naming rights is a creative and practical funding mechanism or plain and simple "selling out" is up to the Board to decide within the month. But the predicament of San Francisco City College is not an aberration; schools across this country are, to one extent or another, struggling with fiscal crises that have no easy solution. And it's not just state budget gaps that impact schools; endowments have been shrinking due to market losses over the past year, forcing schools to re-evaluate where and how to invest even when it comes to needy students, facilities in need of repair, or new construction projects.

In response, new loan business models are emerging as alternatives to the conventional forms of student aid, which is increasingly in short supply. For instance, Harvard graduates Joshua Kushner, Nimay Mehta, and Tanuj Parikh created the Web site Unithrive.org, which connects students in need of loans with alumni, establishing one-on-one "meaningful financial relationships"-- interest-free.

But for many schools, simply relying on financial aid alternatives to make ends meet is not adequate, and have led to cuts in faculty, staff and facility maintenance. In a recent online discussion on The New York Times web site exploring the issue of cost-cutting on college campuses, suggestions included cutting bureaucratic waste (the "usual suspect"), axing frivolous student services, and even standardizing the baccalaureate degree as a three-year instead of four-year endeavor.

Back in San Francisco, once the City College Board of Trustees recovered from the surprise, they agreed that though Chancellor Griffin may have been premature in announcing his course-naming rights proposal, it turned out to be a good thing that their predicament had gotten the country talking. Clearly, more creative and resourceful approaches are required. Chancellor Griffin's proposal may be risky, but in this economy, aren't risks required?