Philanthropic gestures?such as the one made by the S.J. Quinney Foundation last Friday to the University of Utah law school?are immeasurable in their significance to the survival of academic excellence at institutions of higher education, given the system’s rising costs and shrinking budgets.

In donating $26 million to the law school, the Quinney Foundation has facilitated the procurement of scholarships for U law students, as well as much-needed salary increases for the school’s professors, thereby helping to ensure that the quality of education doled out at the U remains among the elite in the nation.

However, it is not just law students that are in need of help.

With the cost of tuition virtually assured of skyrocketing, given the increasing number of students going to school and the contracting amount of state dollars to cover the resulting costs (with both at least a partial byproduct of a slowing economy), it goes without saying that, for students of all majors and disciplines, scholarships have never been more important.

Consequently, it also goes without saying that the generous donations of benefactors loyal to the U have never been more needed.

In cases such as these, there is no such thing as too much of a good thing.

U administrators are engaged in a campaign to raise at least $25 million in general scholarship funds, and apparently they have been successful enough to consider raising the mark to $50 million.

While contributors to the U’s cause have already been more than generous, it is hoped that they will recognize the impending financially dire straights the university will soon experience and, as a result, will remain willing to open their wallets and do what they can to alleviate the problem.

Not all will get a building or college named after them, like S.J. Quinney did, but their donations are no less important and no less appreciated.

No university can survive without charitable help from its benefactors. And while the students who benefit from such generosity may never know the face or name of the person or group who put forth the money for their scholarships, they surely have no such problem expressing the impact such an act has or how grateful they are for it.