Alumni loyalty for eternity

Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill offer plots to those with ties

So many people are dying to return to their alma maters that some universities are making it possible to spend eternity there.

Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill are among those that have recently carved out a niche in the afterlife business.

As families become more transient and less attached to hometowns, many are investing their loyalty in their old schools. At some, you can invest a lot.

At Duke, eternal rest for cremated remains at the new Memorial Garden in the Sarah P. Duke Gardens costs $25,000.

"We have visitors, unauthorized, who sprinkle ashes here now. We wanted to have a little more control," said Jeffrey Yohn, director of development at the Gardens.

Stories are legion across the country of loved ones scattering ashes at night on football fields, in gardens and at other campus haunts potent with meaning.

Now they can do it less furtively -- but some schools have seized upon the final homecomings as fundraising opportunities.

In Duke's case, the university is trying to build a $10 million endowment for the Sarah Duke gardens to pay for paths, walls and special plots, Yohn said. The $25,000 ash burial fee goes toward that goal.

UNC-Chapel Hill offers a different opportunity.

The Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, with gravestones that chronicle more than two centuries of a town and gown closely intertwined, has run out of room for all the Tar Heel born and bred.

So in 2005, UNC-CH dedicated Memorial Grove, a patch of woods just outside the cemetery, to accommodate the ashes of those with strong UNC ties -- for a state-school price of $300.

Now there is more room for the Tar Heel dead.