University Philanthropy
November 5, 2006
German-born Swiss billionaire Klaus Jacobs, 69, best known for the coffee brand that bears his name, pledged a record donation of 200 million euros ($254 million) to a private university in his hometown of Bremen. It's the largest single gift ever given to a German education institution.
The donation, which will be made through a family foundation, involves a gift of 15 million euros per year for the next five years as well as a lump sum of 125 million euros in 2011, and follows the announcement last month of three publicly funded "elite" universities in Germany, which will be receiving 100 million euros each in government support.
Private donations are rare in Germany
Since the university system is mainly publicly financed, private donations, which are common in Britain and the United States, are rare in Germany. Jacobs, who lives near Cambridge, and is now chairman of Adecco, the world's largest temporary employment group, said he wants to set a philanthropic example to the German business community.
"There's enough money around. The Germans have lived 60 years in peace, and the country is rich," Jacobs told the financial daily Handelsblatt. "In Switzerland, Holland and Belgium, not just in the English-speaking countries, businesses and private individuals are much more involved in supporting education… of course, there are exceptions such as the Bosch foundation, but not much has happened since the end of the war."
University offers broad, English language curriculum
The International University Bremen (IUB), which was launched in 2001 as Germany's only private institution that offers a broad curriculum of arts, engineering and sciences in the English language, has an enrolment of over 1,000 students from 86 countries and will be renamed Jacob University Bremen.
The university, however, will have a free hand in defining its academic priorities, Jacobs said.
Three-quarters of the university's student body is foreign, and IUB maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio of ten-to-one, which is lower than other universities in Germany.
Tuition is steep by German standards, ranging from 15,000 to 20,000 euros per year, with many students, in particular those from eastern Europe, requiring scholarships and loans to cover the cost of studying at the IUB.
Financial struggles
The university, which has yet to raise one-third of the 250 million euros in initial capital since its founding, has struggled financially. Competitive salaries are needed to keep the best professors, who are ready to bolt when they are offered tenured positions and state benefits at public universities, according to a commentary in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.
"IUB will now be able to reach that high level of quality that is indispensable for competing with the best schools worldwide," said Jacobs, who once studied at Stanford University.
Jacobs, who has been oft criticized for trading his German passport for a Swiss one, moved his family-owned coffee roasting and importing company to Switzerland 33 years ago, and in 1990, sold Jacobs-Suchard to the tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris, which in turn sold it to Kraft Foods Inc.
To the disappointment of the students, the university's president, Joachim Treusch, said there will be no free Jacobs coffee served on campus.
"Well, we like Jacobs coffee, but I don't think that is a connection that in any way influences our academic development," he said.