From town to gown

That sound citadels of scholarship are often very old institutions, with stout endowment cultures that leverage robust academic and research cultures, are true of the UK as they are of America.  Harvard, the oldest American university, was founded in 1636.  The founding dates of America’s top four largest endowed universities, after Harvard, are: Yale (1701), the University of Texas at Austin (1883), Stanford (1891) and Princeton (1746).

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In both countries, the age of the universities appear generally linked to the size of their endowments, showing that these universities, by their research and scientific patents, have richly impacted their immediate communities – and beyond.  So, inasmuch as endowments are a reward for observable and positive hard work, they are also a charter – big investments with scarce resources – by a grateful community for the university to do more, to further improve the life of the community, for many generations to come.  Endowments are therefore a classic case of town-gown amity and appreciation, driven by the mutual development of both.

In the UK, Oxford, which leads the pack with some 150 millionaire alumni, has the largest endowment with 9.278 billion pounds sterling (by 2021).  The corresponding endowment figures for the others in the top five are: Cambridge (210 million pounds sterling), LSE (225.5 million pounds sterling, as at 2024/25), St. Andrews (139.9 million pounds sterling, as at 2024/25), and Durham (116.3 pounds sterling, as at 2024/25).

America also follows a similar parallel.  Harvard, which boasts the highest number of billionaire alumni – 104 – has the largest endowment.  The figures: Harvard (US$ 53 billion), Yale (US$ 42 billion), The University of Texas System Office (US$ 40 billion), Stanford (US$ 38 billion) and Princeton (US$ 37 billion).

Compared to these fairly easily accessed endowment figures of British and American universities, corresponding numbers for Nigerian universities are hard to come by – in any case, not as single well-integrated figures, giving an account of the universities’ many trusts, supporting sundry scholarships, fellowships and research.

There is a claim that UI has endowments in shares worth over N1 billion, aside from another US$ 1 million, recently donated to the UI College of Medicine.  The University of Lagos (UNILAG) launched a US$ 500 million endowment fund to mark its 60th anniversary in 2022.  There is also a claim that it had accessed some N11.5 billion in research grants.

These are two first-generation Nigerian universities.  If information about their endowments is scanty, beyond claims without specific proofs, what then happens with the far younger universities, with less developed academic cultures and far shorter societal interface?

If Nigerian universities were to embrace a vibrant endowment culture – which they must – the first requirement would be openness.  Not only must they be open in their communication to the public on that score, they must also be very transparent.  Transparency, in fund-management matters, would raise general donor confidence; and give the budding Nigerian university endowment culture a healthy jab in the arm.

From these comparative figures, it is clear that endowments drawn by Nigerian universities are middling – so middling it would be rich to claim we already have such a culture, not to talk of it collapsing.  But it’s what the local academy must press into service, if it wants to diversify its funding and deepen its scholarship and research.  That the government – federal and states – owns most of the public universities even makes endowment support near-imperative.  There is so much limited government funding can do!

Still, at the end of the day, endowments are a celebration of mutual value between the university or polytechnic and its environment.  So, on building a vibrant endowment culture, Stanford University is a good reference point.

Stanford – or more formally: Leland Stanford Junior University – opened in 1891, though its founding date was 1885, after the Stanford couple, Senator Leland Stanford and wife Jane, lost Leland Jr, their only child, to typhoid in 1884.  Stanford is therefore a memorial to the boy, backed with the family’s fortune.  Part of that was Palo Alto, California, the stock farm that became the university’s campus.

Stanford would remain a respected regional university for more than 50 years after its founding.  Following World War II, however, by dint of its exquisite work, Stanford became a major research hub, thanks to research contracts from the US Federal Government, in areas of physics and electronics.  Enter: the famous Silicon Valley, where computer chips transformed global communication and gadgetry.  That would flower into the Stanford Research Park in 1951.

Every Nigerian university worth its name should find its own niche: music, engineering, medicine, architecture, community health, etc. Afrobeats is busy beating the world.  Why shouldn’t a Nigerian university be its “spiritual” home? The Defence Minister, Gen. Christopher Musa (rtd), just discussed the imperative of Nigeria producing own military hardware, including arms and ammo.  Why shouldn’t a Nigerian university be the face of that, and reap rich benefits in research contracts?

There are many areas where Nigerian life cries for local technology to ease things and make life more livable. The challenges are endless.

The more Nigerian universities develop specific expertise and research capability, the more endowment funding would pour in, and the more the town would put its money on the gown to make life mutually richer.

Who says a Nigerian university cannot be the Stanford of the globe, breaking into global reckoning, through the sheer quality of its research and patents, and thus attracting more endowments?