Deferred Education Gift Annuities

For Ralph W. Miller '60 and Dorothy Mock Miller '53, their family legacy is education and teaching. Both Ralph and Dot taught in the West Shore and Mechanicsburg school districts. Dot's mother and father (both SU graduates) and grandmother were teachers. It's no wonder they want their three grandchildren - eight-year-old twins Alexx and Maxx and six-year-old Megan - to have the opportunity to go to college or advanced education beyond high school to prepare for their future careers.

It was for the grandchildren that Ralph and Dot decided to take advantage of the Deferred Education Term Annuity planned gift through the Shippensburg University Foundation. As each grandchild reaches college age, the annuity will provide a fixed number of payments over four years. Once the grandchildren have used the income to pay for tuition and/or associate college expenses, the remaining principal will endow a scholarship fund, named for Ralph and Dot, to be awarded annually to deserving students majoring in elementary education at Ship.

"To me, it is an amazing type of planned gift," Ralph said. "For a $15,000-per-grandchild gift we gave through the SU Foundation, each of our grandchildren will have access to over $6,000 in each of the four years when they most likely will be attending college." "We know how important higher education is for young people," Dot said. "We want our grandchildren to learn skills that will help them land good jobs and be self-sufficient. We want them to get a good start in life and succeed on their own."