Turned off by the big endowments of the nation’s top colleges and universities, a growing number of philanthropists are refusing to give money to their wealthy alma maters and instead are sending their money to institutions that have fewer financial resources, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Contributions to colleges and universities by people who were not alumni increased 14 percent last year, to $5.7-billion, while alumni gave $8.4-billion, according to the Council for Aid to Education, in New York. The council’s data show that less-prosperous institutions are more likely to rely on gifts from people who are not alumni, the newspaper says.

Colleges with modest endowments are focusing their pitches on donors who graduated from wealthier institutions. Steven D. Schutt, president of Lake Forest College, in Chicago, and a former vice president at the University of Pennsylvania (which has a $6.4-billion endowment), says he tells potential donors, “Your return on investment is going to be greater here than at places like Harvard or Yale. A million dollars gets lost in an endowment of three or five or $10-billion.”