Alumni give billions to higher ed every year--but it's often unclear where exactly their money goes. And, as debates about higher ed's effectiveness intensify, savvy alumni are increasingly interested in controlling where their giving goes.

Over at the Chronicle of Higher Ed's Face Value blog, Erin Strout reports on a Williams alum who is trying to convince Williams to allow alumni to work directly with student groups whose missions they wish to support:

Three years ago a student group at Williams College, Williams Students Online, set up a PayPal account to collect donations for a pizza fund. David Kane, a 1988 alumnus, bought $200 worth.

"It made me happy because I got to contribute something small but tangible to a student group that I like and respect," he writes in an essay in The Williams Record.

Now Mr. Kane wonder aloud why he and other alumni can't have such interactions with students more regularly. "Because College bureaucrats trust neither students nor alumni to behave responsibly, at least as far as fund-raising is concerned," he surmises. "The College wants to control the money. It does not trust students to ask for reasonable things. It does not trust alumni to refrain from funding unreasonable requests. It worries that student awkwardness will harm its relationships with alumni donors."

Mr. Kane is asking college officials to consider setting up a Web site modeled on DonorsChoose.org, an organization that allows public-school teachers to enter donation requests, and donors to choose which requests to support. College students could enter projects they'd like to start, and alumni could choose to donate to them.

"My pizza buying should not mark the high point of direct alumni donations to student groups," he writes. "It should be just the start."