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CAE Reports Record Giving To Colleges And Universities

February 27, 2009

By: The NonProfit Times

Charitable contributions to colleges and universities in the United States grew by 6.2 percent in 2008, reaching $31.60 billion, according to results of the annual Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) survey by the Council for Aid to Education (CAE).

During the past 10 years, the average annual increase in contributions to higher education institutions has been 5.7 percent. The $31.60 billion raised in 2008 is the highest total ever reported.

The 20 institutions that raised the most during 2008 received $8.41 billion -- $745.31 million more than the top 20 institutions raised during 2007. Stanford University raised more money from private donors than any other university, followed by Harvard University and Columbia University.

The nation's top 20 fundraising universities (and dollars received) in 2008 are:

  1. Stanford University ($785.04 million)
  2. Harvard University ($650.63 million)
  3. Columbia University ($495.11 million)
  4. Yale University ($486.61 million)
  5. University of Pennsylvania ($475.96 million)
  6. University of California, Los Angeles ($456.65 million)
  7. Johns Hopkins University ($448.96 million)
  8. University of Wisconsin-Madison ($410.23 million)
  9. Cornell University ($409.42 million)
  10. University of Southern California ($409.18 million)
  11. Indiana University ($408.62 million)
  12. New York University ($387.61 million)
  13. Duke University ($385.67 million)
  14. University of California, San Francisco ($366.07 million)
  15. University of Michigan ($333.45 million)
  16. Massachusetts Institute of Technology ($311.90 million)
  17. University of Minnesota ($307.61 million)
  18. University of Washington ($302.77 million)
  19. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ($292.39 million)
  20. University of California, Berkeley ($285.35 million)
The top 20 institutions represent 1.9 percent of the 1,052 survey respondents. However contributions to these 20 institutions account for 26.6 percent of all 2008 gifts to higher education institutions, according to the survey. In addition, the increase in gifts to these 20 institutions accounts for 46.9 percent of the national increase.

In fact, if the contributions received by these 20 institutions were taken out of the data, giving declined by 4.2 percent. Among the individual institutions remaining, experiences varied. About half posted increases in support, and half reported declines.