Alumni / alumnae magazines - American Education

Professionally produced, glossy magazines produced by secondary schools, colleges and universities for distribution to alumni. Long in existence as a device for keeping alumni in touch with each other and with events at their old schools, the alumni magazine has evolved into a slick, four-color, glossy publication for stimulating financial contributions. Of the more than 2,500 four-year colleges in America, about 450 produce alumni magazines. Although public universities usually restrict distribution to paid-up members of their alumni associations, private colleges and universities send their magazines to all their graduates. Depending on average reader income, alumni magazines can be self-sustaining. The median household income of the more than 930,000 readers of magazines in the Ivy League Magazine Network (Yale, Harvard, Princeton, etc.) is $136,000, and advertising by manufacturers of luxury products lures enormous spending by readers. Class notes are the most widely read features in alumni magazines, and articles dealing with campus problems are also of great interest.