Giving
Donations help the Academy educate students to their full potential, which enriches the lives of our students and all the community members they come into contact with. The enrichment is diverse: a wide worldview, informed decisions, an appreciation of all the world offers, and more.
Many of the benefits can be measured in purely economic terms, too, and they far exceed the amount donated to achieve them. Through improvements in education, Las Cruces gains entrepreneurs, an educated workforce, and community income shared via taxes. For individual students who get a fine education, the gains in income are significant. Literacy and math skills are a better predictor of wages than years in school, so the education itself is obviously worth more than the fancy piece of paper at the end. Despite that, even the average high school diploma represents a very good investment. To be specific, in 2004 it represented a yearly salary gain of about $10,000 over the average dropout. That's about half a million dollars total by the time the graduate and dropout both reach retirement age, excluding the significant differences in social costs and benefits between the two. A more realistic estimate is probably at least a million dollars, and all this from a completely average education.
So how much is an extraordinary education from LCA worth? It goes without saying that it will be more valuable than an average education, but we think our students will find they're priceless, as will the communities they join and become leaders in. If that sounds like the kind of investment you'd like to make, there are several ways to help. You can safely use the Google and PayPal donation tools below to donate online, you can volunteer, or you can contact us to discuss the multitude of other options.
We greatly appreciate all the parents, students, teachers, board members, community members, and corporations and foundations that have donated to us already. You may view here the list of donors of funds, goods, and services.
Donate
*** Through Google Checkout:
*** Through PayPal:
*** Through Intuit Payment Network (our accounting service):
Please click here, and please add an identifying remark so that we can attribute this as a donation. In the remark, you can include your name or ask to remain anonymous. Thanks!
*** Through our partnerships with merchants, including Albertsons supermarkets, Amazon, and Target, the group eScrip, and realtor Kathe Pass. You can click here or on the Partnerships link under Giving on the navigation bar at right. Thanks!