Alumni donations are an important source of revenue for colleges and universities. If administrators

could determine the factors that influence increases in the percentage of alumni who make a donation, they might be able to implement policies that could lead to increased revenues. Research shows that students who are more satisfied with their contact with teachers are more likely to graduate. As a result, one might suspect that smaller class sizes and lower student-faculty ratios might lead to a higher percentage of satisfied graduates, which in turn might lead to increases in the percentage of alumni who make a donation. Table 12.8 shows data for 48 national universities (America's Best Colleges, Year 2000 ed.). The column labeled % of Classes Under 20 shows the percentage of classes offered with

fewer than 20 students. The column labeled Student/Faculty Ratio is the number of students enrolled divided by the total number of faculty. Finally, the column labeled Alumni Giving Rate is the percentage of alumni that made a donation to the university.
Managerial Report
1. Develop numerical and graphical summaries of the data.
2. Use regression analysis to develop an estimated regression equation that could be used to predict the alumni giving rate given the percentage of classes with fewer than 20 students.
3. Use regression analysis to develop an estimated regression equation that could be used to predict the alumni giving rate given the student-faculty ratio.
4. Which of the two estimated regression equations provides the best fit? For this estimated regression equation, perform an analysis of the residuals and discuss your findings and conclusions.
5. What conclusions and recommendations can you derive from your analysis?

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TABLE 12.8 DATA FOR 48 NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES % of Classes Under 20 Student/Faculty Ratio Alumni Giving Rate Boston College Brandeis University Brown University Califomia Institute of Technology Carnegie Mellon University Case Western Reserve Univ College of William and Mary Columbia University Cornell University Dartmouth College Duke University Emory University Georgetoan University Harvard University Johns Hopkins University Lehigh University Massachusetts Inst of Technology New York University Northwestern University Pennsylvania State Univ. Princeton University Rice University Stanford University Tufts University Tulane University U. of California-Berkeley U. of California-Davis U. of California-Irvine U. of California-Los Angeles U. of California-San Diego U. of California-Santa Barbara U. of Chicago U. of Florida U. of Illinois-Urbana Champaign U. of Michigan-Ann Arbor U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill U. of Notre Dame U. of Pennsylvania U. of Rochester U. of Southern California U. of Texas-Austin U. of Virginia U. of Washington U. of Wisconsin-Madison Vanderbilt University Wake Forest University Washington University-St.Louis Yale University