NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
MCPHERSON, Kan. — McPherson College announced the funding of an over $1.5 billion endowment in July.
"A donor challenged us to raise $250 million and they would double match that up to $500 million," said President Michael Schneider. "In fact, this donor made a $1 billion irrevocable estate commitment. This is an estate commitment. We do not have the dollars right now, but we will have them in the future. In addition to the donor's $1 billion, we raised another $530 million."
The goal is to make McPherson College the small liberal arts college of the future.
"Not only does it secure our future, it secures the future that we want, it secures a strong future," Schneider said. "It infuses hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to Kansas, so that we can continue to work on our plans to build a rural healthcare degree program and programs that will support rural healthcare in Kansas. It will allow us to take that excellence we've built in automotive restoration and build out an engineering school. This really secures my vision for students to graduate, every student, to meet 100% of need for every student in the future and to ensure that any student who wants to participate in our Student Debt Project can graduate from McPherson College without any debt."
The Student Debt Project is where McPherson College donors match 25 cents for every dollar a student contributes to their education. The school is also improving its physical infrastructure.
"We've got a brand new campus commons coming on board, right off our beachfront property on Kansas Avenue, adjacent to campus, which will be all new dining services, student services, our one stop shop for students, registering for classes, paying their accounts, financial aid, everything in between, in addition to a brand new welcome center that overlooks campus. We're expanding our Sports Center. We're adding a campus bar and grill, to give our students some other options. We've remodeled all of our residential properties, but that's just the beginning. Our board finalized a framework for a campus master plan here this summer and we're going to be going out into the local community, out into our campus over the next year, to really have a conversation about, what does it look like to build a modern destination campus?"
It's hard to say what education will look like in the coming decades, though students after COVID especially, want to feel a part of a community that values them and their contributions, and McPherson College wants to become that community.
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