Carnegie's proposal, Blackman was uneasy with its terms because the amount of funding required to match Carnegie's offer would put a strain on those who had donated to start the college's endowment fund of $200,000 as well as paid a debt of $30,000 ($8.05 million combined today). In correspondence to Bertram dated July 11, 1905, Blackman wrote (according to Cohen):
Our college is in the poorest of States [Florida], remote from all centers of wealth and population, and our friends have strained themselves to the uttermost, in the effort to raise $230,000 in two years ($8.05 million today). I am by no means sure that we can meet Mr. Carnegie's conditions.
In a January 1906 letter Blackman wrote to Carnegie expressing concern about meeting the conditions for the gift, noting that the college had a large debt that took "considerable self-sacrifice on the part of our friends". That summer, another Florida college, Stetson University, was awarded $40,000 ($1,399,852 today) for a library from Carnegie. Upon learning …
