Miami will find a way to funnel it back into the other athletics or academic buildings....
It's specifically earmarked towards scholarship $ for future running backs.
The money "will fund a full scholarship in perpetuity to a running back on the football team." Just because it "will find a full scholarship in perpetuity" doesn't mean it can't do other things as well.
So how much does one full football scholarship cost the university each year and what's the university's expected return rate?
https://umshare.miami.edu/web/wda/accountservices/Tuition_Rates/2014-2015 Tuition Fees Undergrad.pdf
That states tuition & fees costs normal students ~$25,000. Fair to assume the university profits off of that price, so a scholarship for the equivalent items would actually cost the university less. That's normal students, though. Football players probably get a bunch of benefits included in their scholarship, so for the sake of argument, let's just double the cost to students and consider that the cost to the university to give a football player a scholarship -- $50,000. That would mean a four year football scholarship costs Miami $200,000 in total.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/prishe/...eds-2-million-for-college-footballs-top-25/3/
That site has average out of state D1 football scholarships costing ~$150k, so $200k sounds more than fair (that $150k avg includes university profit and in state avgs $100k).
Assuming the $50,000/year figure, let's see what we could do with that $1.5M.
At an expected return of 6%, the university could use $667k of that money, have $833k left, and still fund one full scholarship in perpetuity.
At an expected return of 7%, the university could use $786k of that money, have $714k left, and still fund one full scholarship in perpetuity.
At an expected return of 8%, the university could use $875k of that money, have $625k left, and still fund one full scholarship in perpetuity.
Unless the university's expected rate of return is 3.33% or lower, the university could be able to spend a chunk of that $1.5M now and still fund a full scholarship in perpetuity.
Obviously this is a simplified example, but if the terms of the donation allow it, this money could potentially fund a perpetual scholarship and help with Golden's buyout.
Edit: If donating money for a scholarship means donating to the general fund then obviously none of this matters.
