The case against alumni magazines

What's the opportunity cost?

I would definitely opt out of resourcing an alumni magazine — print or digital — if given the choice.

In the last episode of Alumless, Chris Marshall and I discussed the subject with Lori Hurvitz from Tulane University during the bonus segment. I asked, “If you could start from scratch, would you still resource an alumni magazine?” Both of them said they would.

My answer… “No way.”

Whenever I hear advocates of alumni magazines talk about their value, I hear two main explanations.

1) It’s a coffee table item that provides brand awareness, and the magazine has “staying power.”

2) When we survey our alumni, they say they want it.

Fair enough. These are reasonable arguments for continuing to publish them, but when people talk about university magazines, I don't hear any discussion of opportunity cost. What are schools not able to resource as a result of putting hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions per year, into magazines and the staff to create them?

This is the important question to ask.

If it were me, I’d invest in resources to scale and support broad-based volunteerism on campus, including staff, programs, and technology. I’d put money towards volunteerism and sacrifice the magazine, not because I don’t think it has no value, but because it doesn’t have enough. Scaling volunteerism can help drive enrollment, retention, career outcomes, and increase generosity. Donors want to help students as volunteers.

I’ve never heard anyone make a direct connection between their magazine and enrollment or career outcomes — only anecdotal reflections that donors like it. So I guess it drives philanthropy? Question mark?

I’m not going to make an ageist argument about the magazine either. Plenty of people of all ages enjoy printed communications. Everyone is online, too. It’s not an old-folks/young-folks question. And to be fair, print might come back a bit with all the AI slop out there saturating feeds.

Personally, I hate paper. If you give me a piece of paper, I’m going to throw it away. But I get that digital can be just too much, too. That said, if I’m resourcing storytelling, I’m all in on other forms of content than what we've traditionally served up in magazines.

In reality, only well-resourced schools can afford to resource magazines. People like them, sure. Hearing stories about student success or faculty research is nice. Yay for class notes. Still, it doesn’t move the needle compared with other ways to spend the resources.

What do you think? Yay or nay on the magazines? Do they have enough value?