Maroun semaan born

Inflation, salaries, property maintenance, upgrades, introducing new curricula, let’s be honest, running an institute of higher education is very expensive.
You can turn to tuition fees and alumni associations, revenues from intellectual properties and, if you have a healthcare arm, hospitalizations.

But tuition can only be raised so high before it becomes counterproductive, alumni associations aren’t major earners and even the most successful hospitals make less money than they did in the past. Elsewhere, the State plays a role, but in Lebanon, a country where education is big business and government aid is a chimera, what’s a university to do?

The traditional answer, both in Lebanon and abroad, has been to appeal to benefactors, whether former alumni or socially minded philanthropists, who are prepared to fund the education of future generations.

Still, donations, even large donations, only go so far.

Explaining that one of the best business adages is that ‘the best custo