For decades, names affixed to college bathrooms have adhered to the time-honored tradition of vindictive dudes etching names and numbers of their exes on stall walls. Now the institutions are making the bathroom naming thing part of official fundraising efforts by affixing monikers of donors to the places where some of the deepest thought on campus takes place.

Inside Higher Ed rounds up several instances in which colleges are selling naming rights to bathrooms. Harvard Law School and Colorado have gone through with it, while the University of Pennsylvania lined a bathroom with plaques commissioned by a donor.

Not all bathroom-naming efforts have been successful. MIT deemed the possibility inappropriate years ago, turning down an offer from a former student who found a taker in Colorado. And Dixie State College tried and failed with the practice in an effort to save a musical theater troupe.

With the costs of running institutions of higher learning always escalating, it’s tough to blame fundraisers for looking for new ways to raise money. The bathroom naming rights sector seems to be flush with possibilities.

Well Endowed [Inside Higher Ed]

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