Richest Fraternity or Sorority
 

On your campus, which fraternity/sorority is the richest and has the most amount of money in their budget? On my campus, we are better off than the rest of the sororities because of our alumni support and the many fundraisers. I know that the SAE's at UT-Austin have $100,000 to play with during rush. Plus, they have this huge house ($10 million) currently being built with each room having its own kitchen.

I can't ever imagine a $100,000 rush and a $10,000,000 house. :eek: When I was in school, we had dues of $65 a semester which were raised to about $115. We didn't have a house.

How in the hell can you possibly spend 100k for rush???

Our rush budget is like just over 7 thou, and half of that is used for our rush brochure. The rest pays for food, and b/c we have summer rush and rushees have to be visited the Rush chairs get paid per mile of driving they do...true we usually use every penny of that budget and to have a little bit more would be great, but 90000 more??? Amazing...

What do they actually do with all that money?

At Nebraska, I'd say that all the houses are fairly equal...the only really well known budget anomaly is SigEp's homecoming budget...Which is around $7000 to $8000 compared to most other houses being at $1000 to $1500.

I do know that at Missouri, Beta Theta Pi would have to be the richest...they have one house for pledges/sophomores and another for juniors/seniors. Of course with alumni like Sam Walton, the guy who founded Hidden Valley Ranch, and the now infamous Ken Lay they got a lot of huge donations for a long time.

That seems to be a little inflated??...I would be interested to see this $10,000,000 house too. Not that I don't believe that, but where does a chapter come up with that? There must some serious, serious, serious alumni donations coming in. Either that, or their member dues are $10,000 a year.

I could spend 100k on rush. Hell, I could spend $10,000,000 on rush.

A nice house doesn't mean anything. Our house is worth about 4 million- any house in Amherst with more than 2 square feet of yard is worth a small fortune, and we have a couple acres. We're actually the poorest fraternity here- we have a total budget next semester of $33,000, but $31,000 of that is for mortgage payments and house repairs, so we have an operating budget of $2000. Our rush budget is $200. And to answer your questions, yes, we do just fine- rush here isn't the big pageant it is other places.

The richest fraternity at UMass is SigEp, whom I refer to as 'The Republicans'. The last semi-accurate rumor I heard had their rush budget at around $2000- blue-blood for around here, but peanuts for most other schools our size, I know. Our Greek system is small and relatively poor, because most students at UMass are relatively poor- if they had any money, they'd go to a good school.

The 10 million estimate is a bit high. There is a link somewhere on the web which has information regarding the construction of the new house....and the first 2 phases were estimated at 1.5 million (this does not include the actual bedrooms). I believe UCFPhiDelt knows where to find it...

the richest phi psi chapter is ucla, cal epsilon. they also claim to be the richest fraternity as well. in a way i would believe them. they have some of the most succesful alumni. jerry nelson who is like a billionair is their direct alumni. he is the guy who has the 30 million dollar compound in cabo san lucas that he invites phi psi to stay at for spring break.

a $10 million house?
 

Agreed... my sorority has a brand new house that cost the university about $4 million. It's very nice, but I wouldn't say it's like a mansion or anything. It sleeps 20 girls (mostly in double rooms) and has a kitchen and dining room, formal living room, chapter room, tv room, housemother's suite. It's not extravagant. And land values around school have to be practically nil. Ten million sounds high for a frat house, but if land values are high and it's a fairly luxurious house, that doesn't sound ridiculous. And it's not necessarily the case that the Texas SAE's came up with that money straight out of their dues. I know for sure that my sorority got our new house through the school, it's not like we had to come up with the money on our own right from the get-go. Still I'd be interested to hear how they manage to spend $100,000 on rush! That's a lot for sure.

Wow, our Rush chair was given $150 for a full week of rush and our dues are $150 per term (thats fall, winter, and spring for us). That seems like a lot. I think we'd rather have a house though. In Portland (our university is in the middle of downtown) I can easily see how they could spend that much on a house for that many people. But then again, it seems weird that a university would build it for them. Ours never would, no matter how much we begged. (We can't even get a little office room!)

I wouldn't doubt it that the UT SAEs have that kind of money - and they sure aren't getting a cent from the University. The fact of the matter is, the members as well as the alumni are just plain rich.

$100,000 for rush?? Holy cow, we make do on less than $1000.

The richest sorority on my campus is definitely the Kappas. Heh. That's what their stereotype is all about at my school.
Richest fraternity...I don't know, probably ATO. Their alums just spent $400,000 renovating their house (which used to be the president of the school's mansion) and building them an annex for parties.

It didn't even occur to me to think about which sorority was richest. It's definitely the Kappas, though. INCREDIBLE house- huge, brick, with the white columns in front, it looks every inch the sorority house. (Almost every other Greek house is a wood-frame former farmhouse.) Room for like 50 sisters, great parking, and right on the edge of campus.

That figure just seems a bit inflated to me. I dont doubt they are rich. But I know SMU and UT run on the same level for rich ass students, prolly SMU moreso. ANd the most I have ever heard of at SMU dropping on rush, Phi Delt, SAE, Lambda Chi was like $15,000.

UT-Austin's SAE may have $100,000 for rush budget, but I was told that they don't actually use it all. Its just there just in case they need it. There dues are about $4200 per year, times that by 150-200 because of their membership and there you have it. JACKPOT!!! dgtxalum is right, the guys are rich and so are their alumni

Missouri
 

On my campus, Missouri, our Kappa's are definately the richest sorority. They always go all out on EVERYTHING, it's crazy! And their house, oh my! It takes up almost an ENTIRE street block, I kid you not. It's AMAZING, and it's sooooooooo beautiful!!! And like Betarulz pointed out earlier, Beta Theta Pi is our richest fraternity here. Their annex, oh my goodness, looks like a very upscale apartment complex and it's sooooo big!! Their house is gorgeous too, they also have a nice basketball court out on the back of their house, which I haven't seen anywhere else......and they have soooo much money to spend on things like Greek Week, whichever sorority gets to be their partners for these things is mighty lucky I tell ya! ATO is the runner up for fraternities, they have a parking lot outside as WELL as an under ground parking garage! And their house like Kappa's, also takes up an entire block! :D