Sattler College Turmoil

[cooper]

1. Marlin's sharing private materials broadly and without consent is bad form. (He did this with another apology letter as well.) The fact that he was even considered for a Dean of Students role at Sattler is a red flag. Someone in a Dean role should know how to keep things private. I wouldn't want my son or daughter talking to him privately and having him distribute that information across the country. Marlin's letter certainly makes him look not very trustworthy in my eyes.

I tend to agree with your assessment of Marlin here. The one thing that makes me sympathetic to Marlin is this was not just an employer-employee relationship. Finny's actions here look a lot like spiritual abuse. It appears at Sattler, the lines are blurred between church and college.

In my opinion, Sattler did not learn the right lessons from this incident. Starting spring 2024, they no longer charge tuition. They call it a pay-it-forward model purportedly modeled after Hope College. The reality is now Finny is picking up the entire tab. While this sounds like a wonderful innovation, to me it looks like it increases the potential for abuse of power.

[Ken]

In my opinion, Sattler did not learn the right lessons from this incident. Starting spring 2024, they no longer charge tuition. They call it a pay-it-forward model purportedly modeled after Hope College. The reality is now Finny is picking up the entire tab. While this sounds like a wonderful innovation, to me it looks like it increases the potential for abuse of power.

It also suggests that Sattler is financially moving in the wrong direction. On paper, Sattler College's tuition cost is $37,000. Room and board is in the $16,000 range making the total cost of attendance about $53,000 give or take. That puts it in the same ballpark as other private religious colleges. For example, the tuition at Goshen College is $37,760 and with room/board/fees the total cost of attendance is $ 49,080. At Eastern Mennonite is $40,990 and total cost of attendance is $54,480. So Sattler is squarely in that ballpark. Of course most students at those schools don't pay that much. But it isn't one person doing the subsidizing. The pain is spread around. I have a cousin with a child at Goshen College. Their main tuition subsidy comes from a scholarship program run by their local Mennonite church and not the college at all.

According to their web site, Sattler (Finny) is currently picking up $27,000 in tuition scholarships and $6,270 for room and board scholarships for a total of $33,270. Which makes Sattler's current cost of attendance more or less the equivalent of the average state school. For example, here in WA, the in-state tuition cost to attend University of Washington is $12,076 and the non-flagship schools are in the $8-9K range.

Perhaps this change at Sattler is partly marketing strategy and just shuffling accounts such that they are now waiving the entire $37,000 tuition but expecting students to pay 100% of room and board. Which is, in fact, what Hope College is proposing (free tuition but students pay the full room and board costs). That would only represent an increase of $3,730 from the current $33,270 that students are now receiving which is split between a tuition scholarship and a room and board scholarship.

It is nice that Finny has decided to write $37,000 annual tuition checks for 100 or so Sattler students who are probably mostly from at least middle class families and who would normally be expected to pay for college through a combination of family contribution, work study, and loans. That is a nice $3.7 million annual contribution to the college educations of a bunch of students that he has no family connection to. But there is no way such a thing is sustainable. If Finny walks away or tires of writing tuition checks for hundreds of students that aren't his own, the whole place will vanish in a puff of smoke.

Sattler represents a new model in college philanthropy. Previously, wealthy benefactors who built colleges put their wealth into the infrastructure: Building buildings, buying land, endowing chairs, and so forth. In other words, building up an institution that is financially sustainable into the future. They didn't simply write tuition checks for students to convince them to come. And for that they got their names on buildings or even the college itself (Stanford, Pepperdine, etc.)

As a HS teacher and parent with one child in college and another to soon follow I pay acute attention to these things. College is expensive and there is no free lunch out there anywhere. Not even at Hope College. In fact, let's look at the Hope College "model" for comparison sake.

Hope College was founded in 1851 by the Dutch Reformed Church to educate their own children. They have a pool of alumni in the tens of thousands, many of whom are wealthy and have built up an endowment in the $250 million range. They have a beautiful leafy 125 acre college in Holland MI on the shores of Lake Michigan outside Grand Rapids. So all told, the institution probably has assets (endowment, real estate, infrastructure) of at least a half billion dollars and that probably a low estimate. Plus Hope has a current income stream from their tens of thousands of alumni and other local and church affiliated donors. I still get near monthly fundraising appeals via mail, email, and phone call from the private college I attended over 3 decades ago. I expect Hope is no different.

So with that set of resources, how is Hope making college tuition free? In fact, they aren't. It is just a fundraising angle at the moment and nothing more. If you follow Cooper's link above what you find is the following:

• Hope College is STARTING a new fundraising campaign that they "HOPE" (pun intended) will raise enough funds to make tuition free for all students under a pay-it-forward model that they are calling "Hope Forward"
• Hope College estimates they will need to raise in the neighborhood of $1 billion to make this happen. No word on how far they are towards achieving this goal. But to get there they are going to need to about double their current assets.
• How many students currently get free tuition? From their web site: "Our long-term goal is to fund every student’s tuition through this innovative pay-it-forward model. In just two years, the community of Hope Forward students grew to 58 members: 22 in the inaugural Class of 2025 and 36 in the Class of 2026.". Oh... That's out of a current enrollment of 3,276 or about 900 students per class. So currently 1.7% of Hope students are getting the free tuition. Which is probably no different from any other private school of that size.
• What current students ACTUALLY get is what Hope calls their "Anchored Tuition Pledge" which is essentially a promise that once you start attending Hope your tuition won't go up. Which is no unusual something that many colleges actually do these days.

So until Hope College meets their $1 billion fundraising goal, even Hope College with all its wealth and assets isn't giving free tuition. Not even remotely close. In fact they are still 97.3% away from it.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Wow, this thread is complex.

I dug deeper on the letter that ErnestEby posted written by Marlin Weaver and it is disturbing. Marlin has been sending this "open letter" to people not even connected to the issue. At least two ministers I know of in PA got the letter a while back and said, "Why are we getting this letter?" They felt turned off because it seems like a gossip campaign. He also sent to some people a private recording of a meeting that is described in the letter. He did not get consent from participants to share this recording broadly. I also got a copy of this recording and listened to it so that I could comment correctly. I've also spoken to people closely involved to form an informed picture of the truth. Here are my main concerns.

1. Marlin's sharing private materials broadly and without consent is bad form. (He did this with another apology letter as well.) The fact that he was even considered for a Dean of Students role at Sattler is a red flag. Someone in a Dean role should know how to keep things private. I wouldn't want my son or daughter talking to him privately and having him distribute that information across the country. Marlin's letter certainly makes him look not very trustworthy in my eyes.

2. In his "open" letter, he takes things that other people say in the room and puts them in Finny Kuruvilla's mouth. I listened to the recording and it blew me away. It seems quite dishonest. Marlin should apologize to him for falsely attributing words he didn't say. If you're going to write an open letter, at least do it with honesty and care. Again, this seems more like a gossip and revenge campaign than seeking the truth or promoting any kind of healing.

3. I have confirmed that at least three people have reached out to Marlin for reconciliation meetings and that he has declined all three. Rather than reconcile, he launches this campaign? This is deeply unbiblical. We as a community need to be known for reconciliation. I'm sure the guy is hurting, but aren't there people around him to tell him that he is operating in the flesh? This open letter does nothing but make Marlin look bad and promote bad blood.

If anyone has Marlin Weaver's contact information, I would urge them to get a hold of him and urge him to correct all of this and make things right.

What standing do you have to make such a request? Biblically, the offended party should be doing this. Since you are not an actual party to this, why are you inserting yourself therein?

NOTE TO MODERATORS:Please keep an eye on this thread, in the event that someone posts personal information without their consent.

[Szdfan]

The argument from the Sattler crowd is that Finny isn’t “writing checks:”

The money from Finny that funds Sattler comes from his share of the profits at Eventide. The money never passes through Finny's hands. The donations to Sattler are a legal obligation that has been pledged in perpetuity.

The only legal recourse for Finny to stop funding Sattler would be if the Founding Precepts of the school were changed and Finny interpreted the change as being outside the intent of the school's founding purposes.

The idea that Finny is "writing tuition checks" is incorrect, and the idea that he can control Sattler or students by cutting off funding is likewise incorrect.

Obviously, if Eventide went belly up, the cash flow would also stop.

I still think that this arrangement gives Finny a lot of power at Sattler.

[Ken]

The argument from the Sattler crowd is that Finny isn’t “writing checks:”

The money from Finny that funds Sattler comes from his share of the profits at Eventide. The money never passes through Finny's hands. The donations to Sattler are a legal obligation that has been pledged in perpetuity.

The only legal recourse for Finny to stop funding Sattler would be if the Founding Precepts of the school were changed and Finny interpreted the change as being outside the intent of the school's founding purposes.

The idea that Finny is "writing tuition checks" is incorrect, and the idea that he can control Sattler or students by cutting off funding is likewise incorrect.

Obviously, if Eventide went belly up, the cash flow would also stop.

I still think that this arrangement gives Finny a lot of power at Sattler.

So the checks are being written by Finny's company and not Finny himself? There are no doubt tax reasons for why they are structuring it that way. There are always tax reasons. But it seems a distinction without a difference.

This is the same Finny who has spoken at length on [checks notes] "Capital = Influence: how capital creates influence and impact around the world" https://www.faithdriveninvestor.org/bio ... -kuruvilla

And yes, it is a form of control since the money can be cut off if the institution evolves in a way in which the donor does not approve. In fact a perpetual gift is set up exactly that way to be more controlling. If you donate a lump sum that money is donated and your influence is gone. But if you set up a perpetual gift that can be revoked your influence is perpetual.

[joshuabgood]

The argument from the Sattler crowd is that Finny isn’t “writing checks:”

The money from Finny that funds Sattler comes from his share of the profits at Eventide. The money never passes through Finny's hands. The donations to Sattler are a legal obligation that has been pledged in perpetuity.

The only legal recourse for Finny to stop funding Sattler would be if the Founding Precepts of the school were changed and Finny interpreted the change as being outside the intent of the school's founding purposes.

The idea that Finny is "writing tuition checks" is incorrect, and the idea that he can control Sattler or students by cutting off funding is likewise incorrect.

Obviously, if Eventide went belly up, the cash flow would also stop.

I still think that this arrangement gives Finny a lot of power at Sattler.

So the checks are being written by Finny's company and not Finny himself? There are no doubt tax reasons for why they are structuring it that way. There are always tax reasons. But it seems a distinction without a difference.

This is the same Finny who has spoken at length on [checks notes] "Capital = Influence: how capital creates influence and impact around the world" https://www.faithdriveninvestor.org/bio ... -kuruvilla

And yes, it is a form of control since the money can be cut off if the institution evolves in a way in which the donor does not approve. In fact a perpetual gift is set up exactly that way to be more controlling. If you donate a lump sum that money is donated and your influence is gone. But if you set up a perpetual gift that can be revoked your influence is perpetual.

To be fair, Finny is one of several owners of the business, not the sole owner. So the company's philanthropic arm is not the same as Finny personally.

[Szdfan]

The argument from the Sattler crowd is that Finny isn’t “writing checks:”



I still think that this arrangement gives Finny a lot of power at Sattler.

So the checks are being written by Finny's company and not Finny himself? There are no doubt tax reasons for why they are structuring it that way. There are always tax reasons. But it seems a distinction without a difference.

This is the same Finny who has spoken at length on [checks notes] "Capital = Influence: how capital creates influence and impact around the world" https://www.faithdriveninvestor.org/bio ... -kuruvilla

And yes, it is a form of control since the money can be cut off if the institution evolves in a way in which the donor does not approve. In fact a perpetual gift is set up exactly that way to be more controlling. If you donate a lump sum that money is donated and your influence is gone. But if you set up a perpetual gift that can be revoked your influence is perpetual.

To be fair, Finny is one of several owners of the business, not the sole owner. So the company's philanthropic arm is not the same as Finny personally.

Yes...but I think there are still red flags here.

[Ernie]

To be fair, Finny is one of several owners of the business, not the sole owner. So the company's philanthropic arm is not the same as Finny personally.

Do the donations come from his dividends or from all the owners?

[cooper]

So the checks are being written by Finny's company and not Finny himself? There are no doubt tax reasons for why they are structuring it that way. There are always tax reasons. But it seems a distinction without a difference.

This is the same Finny who has spoken at length on [checks notes] "Capital = Influence: how capital creates influence and impact around the world" https://www.faithdriveninvestor.org/bio ... -kuruvilla

And yes, it is a form of control since the money can be cut off if the institution evolves in a way in which the donor does not approve. In fact a perpetual gift is set up exactly that way to be more controlling. If you donate a lump sum that money is donated and your influence is gone. But if you set up a perpetual gift that can be revoked your influence is perpetual.

Eventide has donated nearly $60 million dollars to global development. For this I have a lot of admiration for Finny.
https://www.eventideinvestments.com/onepercent/

[Ken]

So the checks are being written by Finny's company and not Finny himself? There are no doubt tax reasons for why they are structuring it that way. There are always tax reasons. But it seems a distinction without a difference.

This is the same Finny who has spoken at length on [checks notes] "Capital = Influence: how capital creates influence and impact around the world" https://www.faithdriveninvestor.org/bio ... -kuruvilla

And yes, it is a form of control since the money can be cut off if the institution evolves in a way in which the donor does not approve. In fact a perpetual gift is set up exactly that way to be more controlling. If you donate a lump sum that money is donated and your influence is gone. But if you set up a perpetual gift that can be revoked your influence is perpetual.

Eventide has donated nearly $60 million dollars to global development. For this I have a lot of admiration for Finny.
https://www.eventideinvestments.com/onepercent/

According to the link you provided that represents 1% of their assets under management. I have no idea what their actual earnings are to know if that is a high percentage or not. Is it admirable? Sure. More admirable than for someone who donates their time and themselves to global development efforts? I'm not so sure.

I tend to be skeptical of a world in which wealthy individuals have outside influence by virtue of their wealth. Whether their names are Finny Kuruvilla, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, George Soros, Harlan Crow, or Charles Koch.

I tend to be more approving of efforts and institutions that are broad-based and democratic rather than the pet projects of certain wealthy individuals. Whether we are talking about churches, colleges, political parties, or international development.