The letter arrives every fall, usually right around homecoming. Your old college wants you back, sort of. It wants a gift. The envelope is warm and nostalgic, full of photographs of a campus you loved and a young version of yourself you half recognize. It reminds you that you owe something to the place that shaped you, and honestly, you feel it. You did learn things there. You made friends there. Maybe you met your spouse there. And now the phone bank of eager students is calling, or the reunion committee is emailing, and a real question surfaces for a Christian who wants to steward money faithfully. Is it even Biblical to give to your alma mater? Is gratitude a good enough reason? And if you do give, where does that gift belong in the order of everything else God asks of your generosity? Let us take both the Scripture and the numbers seriously, in that order.
“Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”
2 Corinthians 9:7 (KJV)
That verse is the ground we build on. Giving is purposed in the heart, freely and in advance, never squeezed out of guilt or nostalgia. So before we talk about scholarship funds, matching gifts, or the tax mechanics of donating stock in 2026, we settle the heart. Is gratitude for an education a legitimate reason to give? Yes. Does that gratitude outrank the first claims Scripture places on your generosity? No. This guide walks through both truths carefully, because a warm feeling toward your school is a fine place to start and a dangerous place to stop.
Let us dispose of the false guilt first. There is nothing unspiritual about feeling grateful to a school and wanting to bless it. Thanksgiving is woven through the whole Bible as a proper response to good gifts, and an education is a good gift. Skills, knowledge, friendships, a start in a career, teachers who believed in you: these are real goods that came to you through a real place. Wanting to return something to the well you drank from is a decent and human impulse, and it can be a holy one.
Paul actually gives us a principle that touches this directly. Writing to the Galatians, he speaks about the relationship between those who are taught and those who teach.
“Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.”
Galatians 6:6 (KJV)
The immediate context there is spiritual teaching, supporting those who instruct you in the faith. But the underlying wisdom, that the one who is taught should share good things with the one who teaches, has a gentle echo in the classroom too. If a place genuinely taught you, sharing back with it is not a foreign idea to Scripture. Gratitude that turns into generosity is exactly the direction the Bible pushes a thankful heart. So do not let anyone shame you for wanting to give to your school. The question is never whether gratitude is a valid motive. It is whether gratitude has been placed in the right order behind the claims that come first.
Here is where Scripture gets specific and a little demanding. The Bible does not treat all giving as equal in urgency. It sets a priority order, and your alma mater is not at the top of it.
The first claim, painfully practical, is your own household. Paul is blunt about it.
“But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”
1 Timothy 5:8 (KJV)
Before a single dollar goes to a university endowment, your family's genuine needs, your own emergency fund, your debts, and the care of dependents come first. A donation that leaves your household exposed is not generosity. It is a failure Scripture describes in the harshest terms. Giving to your alma mater should flow from provision, not instead of it.
The second claim is the local church and the poor. When Paul organizes the great collection in his letters, the recipients are believers in need and the ministry of the gospel, not civic institutions. Continuing in the same chapter of Galatians, he widens the lens.
“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.”
Galatians 6:9-10 (KJV)
Do good unto all men, especially unto the household of faith. There is the ordering in one sentence. We are to do good broadly, which absolutely can include a school. But there is a special weight, an especially, on the family of believers and on the ministry that carries the gospel. Your local church, the poor it serves, missionaries, disaster relief, the widow and the orphan Scripture names again and again: these carry a priority that a well funded university simply does not. Most colleges have paid staff, endowments, alumni offices, and access to capital that a struggling church member or a hungry family does not. That difference in need is not incidental. It should shape where your first dollars go.
None of this forbids giving to your alma mater. It locates it. Alma mater giving belongs in the category of doing good to all men, funded from the overflow once the especially has been honored. If you are tithing to your church, caring for your family, and giving to the poor, then blessing the school that shaped you is a fine use of what remains. But if the college letter is pulling dollars away from those first claims, the order has been inverted, and it needs to be set right.
This is the practical question that trips up sincere givers. If I give five hundred dollars to my university, can I count it as part of my tithe this year?
Christians hold this a little differently, and we should be charitable about the differences, including honest disagreement over whether the tithe is a strict ten percent at all. But the mainstream and, I think, the sounder view runs like this. The tithe, historically, was tied to the house of God and the support of those who ministered there, and by natural extension today, to your local church, the body that teaches you, baptizes you, buries you, and cares for you in crisis. A university, even a beloved one, does not do that. It is not your spiritual home. So the cleanest way to think about it is this: the tithe supports the church, and a gift to your alma mater is a freewill offering above and beyond the tithe.
Why does this matter in dollars and cents? Because if you fold college giving into your tithe, the local church quietly loses. Suppose you earn seventy thousand dollars and aim to give ten percent, seven thousand dollars. If two thousand of that goes to your university and you count it inside the ten percent, your church now receives five thousand instead of seven, and a secular endowment has effectively been funded out of your church's support. Kept separate, the church still receives its seven thousand, and the college gift is genuine extra generosity from your margin. The heart behind the tithe was never to spread it thin across whatever charity tugged at you. It was to sustain the ministry that sustains you. Keep the two buckets distinct, and both stay honest.
Should the school's mission change your decision? It should inform it, without making you paranoid. A Christian college that trains believers and teaches the faith is an easy thing to bless, closer to the household of faith Paul singles out. A secular university sits in the broader do good unto all men category. Both can be worthy. Scripture does not tell you to fund only explicitly Christian institutions.
What matters more than the label is what your specific gift actually does. Money is fungible in a general fund, so an unrestricted gift to a large university supports everything that institution does, the parts you admire and the parts you may not. That is not a reason for guilt, but it is a reason for eyes open giving. Two honest questions help. First, does this institution actively work against convictions I hold dear, in a way that would trouble my conscience to fund? Second, can I direct my gift toward a purpose I can wholeheartedly bless? Which brings us to the single most useful tool the Christian giver has here.
An unrestricted gift disappears into the operating budget. A restricted gift is earmarked for a specific purpose the school agrees to honor. For a believer, the restricted gift is often the more faithful path, because it lets your generosity land where you can see it doing good. And the clearest example is the scholarship fund for students of modest means.
Think about what such a gift does. It takes a student who could not otherwise afford the education you received and opens the door for them. That is not vague institutional support. That is doing good to a specific person, lifting a burden, giving opportunity to someone who lacks it. It rhymes with the Bible's constant concern for the one who cannot repay you. Jesus praised giving that helps those who have no way to give back. A need based scholarship is close to that spirit. You will likely never meet the student, and that is part of its beauty.
Typical alumni gifts are more modest than the naming brochures suggest. Most annual alumni gifts fall in the range of tens to a few hundred dollars, not the six figure sums that get buildings named. That is fine. Pooled with others, even a modest recurring gift to a scholarship fund adds up, and many schools let you contribute to an existing need based fund rather than endowing your own. If you do want to establish a named endowed scholarship, be aware that schools typically require a substantial minimum, often twenty five thousand dollars or more, invested so that only the earnings are spent each year and the gift funds a student in perpetuity. The visual below shows how a fund like that can grow and give year after year.
Now the heart check that this topic demands more than most, because higher education runs on recognition. Buildings bear donors' names. Plaques list giving levels. Reunion classes compete over participation rates. The whole machine is engineered to make you feel seen for giving. And Jesus said something that cuts directly across it.
“But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.”
Matthew 6:3-4 (KJV)
Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. That is not a ban on ever being known as a donor. It is a scalpel aimed at motive. Jesus had just warned against those who give to be seen and praised, saying they have their reward already, the applause, and nothing more. The searching question for the alumnus is simple and uncomfortable. Would I give this same amount if no one knew? If my name were never listed, never carved, never announced at the reunion dinner, would I still write the check? If the honest answer is no, then the recognition has become the reward, and the gift has curdled into a purchase of prestige.
This does not mean a named scholarship is always pride. Sometimes a name serves the gift, letting a grateful student write to a mentor, or encouraging classmates to follow. The test is whether the name is a tool for the giving or the reason for it. Give in secret when you can. Let your generosity be quiet. If your name ends up on something, hold it loosely and make sure God, not the plaque, was the audience you were giving to all along.
With the heart settled, the practical tools genuinely matter, because they let a fixed, cheerful heart deliver more. Three are worth knowing.
First, the employer matching gift. This is the most overlooked multiplier in all of giving. A great many companies match the charitable donations of their employees, commonly dollar for dollar up to an annual cap that often runs from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, and colleges are almost always eligible recipients. You give four hundred dollars, submit a short matching request through your employer's portal, and the company sends another four hundred to the same school. Your gift doubled and it cost you nothing extra. Before you give a dime, check whether your employer matches. It is pure stewardship, more good done from the same heart.
Second, appreciated stock. If you own stock or fund shares that have grown in value and that you have held longer than a year, giving the shares directly to the school or its foundation, rather than selling them first, avoids the capital gains tax you would otherwise owe on the growth. The school is tax exempt, so when it sells the shares, no one pays that tax, and the full value funds your gift. If you itemize, you may also deduct the fair market value. On a stock worth five thousand dollars that you bought for two thousand, giving it directly rather than selling it can spare roughly four to six hundred dollars in capital gains tax at typical rates, money that then reaches the school instead of the government. Confirm the mechanics with the school's advancement office and a tax professional.
Third, the deduction reality. Charitable gifts only reduce your taxes if you itemize, and in 2026 the standard deduction is large, roughly sixteen thousand dollars for single filers and about thirty two thousand for married couples filing jointly. Most households take the standard deduction and get no separate tax break for a college gift, and that is completely fine. Giving is worship, not a tax maneuver. Where a deduction is available, treat it as a bonus that lets you give a little more, never as the reason you gave. And if you do itemize, gifts to a school must go to the institution itself, not to an individual student, to be deductible.
So step back and look at the whole picture. A gift to your alma mater is not the first claim on your generosity, but it is a legitimate one, funded from the overflow after your household, your church, and the poor have been honored. It counts most cleanly as an offering beyond the tithe, not as a slice of it. A restricted gift to a need based scholarship usually does more visible good than an unrestricted check. A matching gift can double it and appreciated stock can stretch it, so a fixed heart delivers more. And through all of it, the quiet test of Matthew 6 keeps watch over your motive.
The Bible even gives a rhythm for turning good intentions into steady giving. Paul told the Corinthians to set generosity aside deliberately, on a schedule, rather than in guilty bursts.
“Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.”
1 Corinthians 16:2 (KJV)
Lay by in store, as God hath prospered you. Plan your giving. Decide in advance, in your heart, what your church receives, what the poor receive, and what is left over for the good you want to do in the world, your old school included. That kind of planned, purposed generosity is far healthier than reacting to whichever appeal has the most emotional photographs. And it protects the order, so the reunion letter never quietly outbids the widow down the street.
One last honest word, so no one carries false guilt out of this. Giving to your alma mater will not make you richer, and it will not buy you standing with God. Scripture never promises that, and generous believers still face hard years. If you cannot give to your school right now because your first obligations take everything you have, then do not give, and give without shame. Honor the Lord where you are, with what you have. But if your provision is in order, your church is supported, and gratitude to the place that shaped you is stirring you toward generosity, then give, cheerfully and in the right order, from a willing heart. That is a gift the Father who sees in secret is pleased to receive.
Most Christians who tithe treat the tithe as support for the local church that teaches and cares for them, and count college giving as generosity beyond the tithe. Scripture ties the tithe and the offering to the house of God and to the care of God's people, not to a university. If money is tight, that ordering matters, because a gift to your school should not quietly replace your support of the church. Give to your alma mater from the overflow, once the first claims on your generosity are met.
It is not wrong in itself. Scripture calls us to do good to all people, and education, honest research, and opportunity for students are genuine goods. The caution is to look at what your specific gift funds and whether the institution actively works against your convictions. A restricted scholarship for students who could not otherwise attend is easy to bless. A blank check to a general fund you cannot see into deserves more thought. Give with open eyes, not with guilt and not with naivety.
Many employers will match charitable donations their employees make, often dollar for dollar up to an annual cap, and most colleges and universities are eligible recipients. You give, then submit a short matching request through your employer, and the company sends an equal amount to the same school. A four hundred dollar gift can become eight hundred at no extra cost to you. It is one of the most overlooked ways to stretch a gift, and it is simply good stewardship of what God has entrusted to you.
Not automatically, but it is worth searching your heart honestly. Jesus warned against giving to be seen and praised by others, and told us to give so quietly that our left hand does not know what our right hand is doing. A named scholarship can serve a real purpose, helping students find and thank a mentor or encouraging others to give. The question is whether the recognition is a tool for the gift or the reason for it. If you would not give the same amount anonymously, the name has become the point.
If you sell an appreciated stock yourself, you owe capital gains tax on the growth, which leaves less to give. If you transfer the shares directly to a qualified school or its foundation, no one pays that tax, because the school is tax exempt, so the full value funds the gift. If you itemize, you may also deduct the fair market value. This is education, not tax advice, so confirm the details with the school's advancement office and a tax professional before you transfer anything.
No. Scripture nowhere promises that giving, to a school or anyone else, buys blessing or returns a profit to you. Giving is worship and an act of trust in the Lord, and generous, faithful believers still walk through hardship and loss. Be wary of any teaching that frames a donation as a deposit God is obligated to repay. The real reward of giving is a heart loosened from the grip of money and the joy of doing good, not a payout.
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