For the 99 percent of colleges, it was a pretty good fundraising year. For the 1 percent of super-wealthy elite, it was a much better one that catapulted them even further ahead of the pack.
The latest annual college fundraising figures out today show donations to colleges and universities rose 8.2 percent in fiscal 2011, crossing back over the $30 billion mark for the second time ever and improving many schools’ financial footing after several lean years because of the economic downturn.
But the very richest universities accounted for a big chunk: Of the $30.3 billion collected by colleges and universities nationwide, $8.2 billion — or 27 percent — was raised by the top 20 institutions. At those universities, fundraising was 15.3 percent higher than the year before, widening an already-yawning wealth gap at the top of higher education.
Stanford, which recently broke a record by completing a five-year, $6.2 billion fundraising campaign, led with $709.4 million collected in fiscal 2011, followed by Harvard ($639.2 million) and Yale ($580.3 million). Rounding out the list were private universities such as Columbia and Johns Hopkins. Most campuses on the list have major medical schools and affiliated research centers, though No. 4 MIT ($534 million) is an exception. The Associated Press
