The Associated Press reported this week that University of South Central Idaho president, John “Hack” Hoover, was forced out because the university loaned money to the University of South Central Idaho (Blazing Badgers) Foundation for a Grangeville building project that included a strip mall. In plain English, the university loaned money to a foundation that’s supposed to be raising money for the university, which is like the United Way calling a loan to itself a donation to be paid back whenever. That’s assuming someone keeps track of the loan donation, which apparently was a problem for the USCI bookkeepers.

But a USCI alumni association spokesperson said Hack Hoover should not be forced into early retirement because he used a little creative financing to keep the USCI graduates happy. He should be praised. The loan donation is the most creative idea any university has come up with that could boost enrollment since National Defense Student Loans back in the 60s. Think of the potential for loan donations.

Undergraduates desperate to pay college tuition receive a loan donation from USCI that could, if and when the student graduates, be converted into a reverse donation to the USCI Blazing Badgers Alumni Foundation. The student’s only obligation would be to pledge to the Foundation an amount based on the tuition loan donation made by the university and a potential income formula. A variety of pledge payment plans could be offered and adjusted to the income potential of the graduate from nothing for English majors to $1 million minimum for pre-law, $5 million for pre-med, and $50 million for software engineers.  

The USCI Foundation could then take the pledge money and donate it to the university tuition donation loan fund to assure future generations could also attend the university at no cost while, at the same time, assuring perpetual donations to the Foundation from USCI graduates.

But let’s not forget the university president. Loaning a donation to a foundation in this era of increasingly absurd tenured faculty salary demands would benefit every state university president who wants to look like a terrific fundraiser, which is, after all, the primary job of a university president. Simply loan a few million tax dollars from the university budget to the foundation and have the foundation return the money as a donation to the university. The bottom line for the university would look terrific and the alumni would appear very generous, especially if the money was moved back and forth a few times a year.

Yes, the USCI alumni association strongly recommended the University of South Central Idaho not fire Hack Hoover, but lend his name to a new and improved business school, the core of which would be the top creative accounting program in the nation.

the editors