How can I add acknowledgements on the title page as a numbered footnote?

Question

I was asked to add acknowledgements to the right of the author name as the first footnote. (So the footnote should be numbered as "1" but for some reason it only shows asterisk "*".)

Could anyone help me?

\documentclass[12pt,letterpaper,leqno,pdftex]{article}
\title{AAAAA}
\author{BBBBB\footnote{CCCCC} \\DDDDD University }
\date{\today}
\begin{document}
\begin{titlepage}
\maketitle
\begin{abstract}
EEEEEE
\end{abstract}
\end{titlepage}
\end{document}

Answer 1

The standard classes locally redefine footnote internals to use symbols and different formatting, so that \thanks works (which is really just \footnote in disguise.

It would be possible to undo those redefinitions but just for a one off note I'd simply avoid the issue as follows:

\documentclass[12pt,letterpaper,leqno,pdftex]{article}
\title{AAAAA}

\author{BBBBB\textsuperscript{1}\\DDDDD University }
\date{\today}
\begin{document}
\begin{titlepage}
\maketitle
\begin{abstract}
EEEEEE
\end{abstract}
\footnotetext[1]{CCC}
\end{titlepage}
\end{document}

Answer 2

The article class defines \footnote in the title part as \thanks and numbers it with symbols (this is customary in many journals).

You can revert the policy by patching the \maketitle command:

\documentclass[12pt,letterpaper,leqno]{article}

\usepackage{etoolbox}
\makeatletter
\patchcmd{\maketitle}{\@fnsymbol}{\@arabic}{}{}
% \patchcmd{\maketitle}{\setcounter{footnote}{0}}{}{}{}
\makeatother

\title{AAAAA}
\author{BBBBB\thanks{CCCCC} \\DDDDD University }
\date{\today}
\begin{document}
\begin{titlepage}
\maketitle
\begin{abstract}
EEEEEE
\end{abstract}
\end{titlepage}
\end{document}

Uncomment the second \patchcmd line if you need that the successive footnotes start from 2. With the % in place the first footnote in the document body will be numbered 1.

The pdftex option is usually not needed (I recommend not specify it).