The appointed cloud

It has long been my (incorrect) assumption that we refer to the college from which one has graduated as we do not in reference to the education received while a student, nourishing as it may be (for one may receive any amount of education without yet graduating, and therefore without earning the right to refer to the institution in the privileged way), but in the expectation that there will be continuing ties between the school and the erstwhile student which will benefit the latter. It would, after all, bespeak a stepmotherly nature to leave off nurturing after a mere four years. However, my own experience has been that nearly immediately after graduation my school, pleading poverty and desiring to undertake a number of dubious projects (desirous, in particular, of an ill-advised makeover), began bombarding me with a torrent of dunning letters, one memorable series being festooned with the face and words of a cousin who also attended. None was effective—I don't have quite enough income to dispose of it in support of policies I don't want enacted anyway—but the persistence suggests a revision: not alma mater but arme Mutter.