Librarian leaves $4 million to alma mater, critics question how school spends money

Unbeknownst to everyone around him until he died at age 77 in 2015, New Hampshire resident Robert Morin was a multimillionaire.

The librarian — who graduated from the University of New Hampshire before working in the school's library for nearly 50 years — quietly amassed a $4 million estate, thanks to a simple lifestyle and smart saving habits.

Morin bequeathed the entire fortune to his alma mater, earmarking just a fraction of it — he requested $100,000 go toward the Dimond Library, where he spent the majority of his career.

As for the remaining $3.9 million, Morin told his financial advisor that he trusted the school to "figure out what to do with it."

A hefty chunk — $1 million — will fund a video scoreboard for the university's newly renovated football stadium. As UNH explained in a press release, "In the last 15 months of his life Morin lived in an assisted living center where he started watching football games on television, mastering the rules and names of the players and teams."

"To many, the football scoreboard seems out of sync with the life of a library employee with a reported passion for movies and books, one said to have read 1,938 books published in chronological order from the decade starting in 1930," Rick Seltzer of Inside Higher Ed reported.

"Others have argued it is simply wasteful spending, funneling valuable unrestricted money into athletics instead of important academic pursuits."

The critics are also quick to note that the renovated stadium has already set UNH back $25 million.

"Apparently, $25 million just wasn't enough," wrote New Hampshire graduate Claire Cortese, who called the administrative decision "a complete disgrace to the spirit and memory of Robert Morin."

Another UNH grad, Kristine Newhall, chimed in: "I am not inherently opposed to some of the money going to the football program. I am opposed to it going to a scoreboard which, in the age of planned obsolescence, will be out of date in 5? 10? Years. Use it to endow a scholarship for a player who wants to go to grad school maybe. … Pay it forward; make it meaningful."

The controversial decision plays into a larger topic of debate: students footing the bill for their school's athletic department.

Mandatory student fees to support athletic programs are common around the country. Take the University of Virginia, where student fees for athletics ($657 annually) generate $13.2 million a year, The Washington Post reported.

"These students are being forced to pay for something that they may or may not take advantage of, and then they have to bundle this into student loans they'll be repaying for 10 or 20 years," Natalia Abrams, executive director of Student Debt Crisis, told the Post.

As for the rest of Morin's generous gift, $2.5 million will go toward launching a career center for UNH students and alumni. The remainder has yet to be allocated.