Tuition and fees cover only a portion of Wesleyan’s actual yearly costs per student. Each student is supplemented by a disbursement from our endowment. For the remainder, we rely on grants from foundations and corporations, and gifts from Wesleyan alumni, faculty, staff, students, friends—and parents. Gifts to the Parents Fund are especially valued because they allow Wesleyan the flexibility to direct them to areas of greatest need in a given year.

Parents Fund gifts go to work immediately. The largest single funding priority is keeping a Wesleyan education accessible by providing crucially needed financial aid. In addition, every aspect of a Wesleyan education and every place on campus benefits from gifts to the Parents Fund. For example, your contribution helps to support faculty and student research projects, numerous co-curricular activities, lecture series and performances, instruments in the science labs, equipment for Cardinal sports teams, career development workshops and resources, and furniture in the residence halls. Wesleyan students are the greatest and most direct benefactors of gifts to the Parents Fund.

Your gift of any size is greatly appreciated. Gifts range from $25 to $25,000 and beyond, with an average family gift to the Parents Fund of $2,000, and a median gift of $250 in past fiscal years. An annual gift of $1,831 (commemorating the year of Wesleyan’s founding), places you in the 1831 Society. All 1831 Society members are invited to a reception celebration each year. We are grateful that Wesleyan is kept among the philanthropic priorities of so many Wesleyan families.

For fiscal year 2023 (ending on June 30), the goal for the Parents Fund is $1.5 million. Approximately 700 Wesleyan families make gifts of all sizes to the Parents Fund each year to help us meet our goal. Parent and family giving is built on a solid and successful tradition over the decades. Parents of undergraduates and of past graduates participate equally in supporting the Parents Fund, with some examples of parents continuing to make gifts twenty-five-plus years after their student(s) graduated. 

Parents and families contribute to numerous restricted purposes in addition to supporting the Parents Fund. Truly, Wesleyan would not be the vibrant, innovative, and globally conscious place it is without the support of its extended family.