I don't think they will lose money overall because now ALL money will be coming in annually. Someone mentioned the major gifts have to be paid off in 5 years - not true. They will give you up to 7 years to pay them off, which is what most people sign up to do (although many will pay it off sooner). So if you're talking about 6 $800 seats, you're losing someone paying about $7k/year for a while and then probably very little, as opposed to someone paying about $5k/year as long as they have the tickets.

At least that's my guess as to how they're looking at it. Again, it sucks, but that's the new reality I guess.