Giving Priorities

Help us bring the brightest students to Duke. And help us ensure that Duke students have the support they need to thrive and become leaders in the world they will inherit. Student Experience is Duke's vision to meet the social, intellectual, and financial needs of every Duke student.

The Office of Undergraduate Education prioritizes four pillars of Student Experience.

• Financial Aid & Student Supports - Through financial aid and wrap-around support, we can welcome the brightest students to Duke and make sure their brilliance shines through
   
• Academic Excellence - Help students develop lifetime learning skills, navigate academic paths, faculty connections, and research opportunities
   
• Boundless Learning - At Duke, we extend learning opportunities beyond the campus classroom
   
• Faculty Connections - We celebrate teaching excellence and create platforms for mentoring

Gifts to provide unrestricted support for these critical Student Experience areas are also welcome.

Financial Aid and Student Supports

Duke has long recognized that while talent is equally distributed across groups, opportunity and access are not. Financial Aid allows students across the socioeconomic spectrum to say “Yes!” to Duke. Without a stronger financial aid endowment, we expect to lose the brightest lower- and middle-income students to peers that can provide simple, enticing financial aid packages.

Once a student commits to Duke, we ensure that they thrive—with supports and resources to ensure that all Duke students can take advantage of everything that Duke has to offer.

Academic Excellence

Excellence doesn’t happen by chance—it’s cultivated through bold ideas, relentless curiosity, and the resources to turn potential into progress. To equip our students with the tools to meet the world’s most pressing challenges, we must invest in academic supports. This means endowing a successful tutoring program, cultivating metacognition, meeting student learning differences, and making data-informed decisions. With your support, we can empower the next generation of thinkers and trailblazers, ensuring that our university remains a beacon of knowledge, innovation, and impact for years to come.

Boundless Learning

We are committed to creating an environment where intellectual curiosity thrives in every aspect of student life—on campus, off-campus, during internships, abroad, and even in their residence halls. Studies show that learning outside the classroom increases cultural awareness, civic engagement, confidence, curiosity, resilience, and executive functioning.

We want every student to immerse themselves in meaningful conversations and experiences, gaining the tools to navigate the world with confidence.

Faculty Connections

Faculty are the heart of Duke’s intellectual community, and we recognize the extraordinary impact they have on shaping the undergraduate experience. Faculty bring brilliance, passion, and creativity to undergraduate pedagogy, research, and mentorship. Our aim is to celebrate and support them in fostering strong connections with our undergraduate students. We strive to empower Duke’s great educators as they continue to inspire the next generation of thinkers, leaders, and innovators.