(FORTUNE Magazine) – Graduating MBAs aren't the only ones after big bucks. Business schools want % money too, and some are ready to rename themselves after you -- provided you can meet the asking price. You're too late to get your moniker on New York University's B-school. New York publisher and 1959 alumnus Leonard N. Stern snapped up that opportunity in 1988, paying $30 million for the honor. But there are other current listings, among them: -- The University of Michigan's School of Business Administration wants at least $40 million. -- Columbia University's School of Business is looking for $55 million to $65 million. Sound steep? Listen to Meyer Feldberg, Columbia's business school dean: ''When you name a school at Columbia after someone, you're creating immortality for an individual or a family. A very large gift is appropriate.'' The tab for such immortality was particularly high through the 1980s (see table for a sampling). The country's oldest such institution, the Wharton School, was endowed in 1881 by nickel and zinc magnate Joseph Wharton. He bought posterity for a paltry $100,000, a mere $1.6 million in today's dollars. The biggest donor of them all? George F. Baker, a founder of First National Bank of New York (which evolved to become Citicorp). In 1924 he gave $5 million to Harvard's business school, which opened its doors in 1908. Adjusted for inflation, that equals $43.2 million today. Baker gets scant thanks for his generosity, however. Most people call it the Harvard business school even though the Graduate School of Business Administration, George F. Baker Foundation is its full and proper name. Buyer beware. -- R.J.

BOX: NEW MONIKERS FOR OLD The 1980s: boom times for renaming business schools -- for a price

GIFT BUSINESS SCHOOL NAMED FOR in millions YEAR New York University Leonard N. Stern $30 1988 Cornell University Samuel Curtis Johnson $20 1984 University of Minnesota Curtis L. Carlson $18 1986 University of California at Berkeley Walter A. Haas $15 1989 Brigham Young University J. Willard and Alice S. $15 1988 Marriott Washington University John M. Olin $15 1988 UCLA John E. Anderson $15 1987 University of Rochester William E. Simon $15 1986 Wichita State University W. Frank Barton $12 1987 Boston College Wallace E. Carroll $10 1989 University of Pittsburgh Joseph M. Katz $10 1987 Duke University J. B. Fuqua $10 1980