Stanford Univ. first to raise $1B

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Stanford University has set a new record for college fundraising, becoming the first school to collect more than $1 billion in a single year, according to a report released Wednesday.


For the eighth straight year, Stanford ranked first in the Council for Aid to Education’s annual college fundraising survey, which shows that elite institutions continue to grab a disproportionate share of donor dollars.



In the 2012 fiscal year, roughly 3,500 U.S. colleges and universities raised $31 billion, 2.3 percent more than the previous year. The record was set in 2008 when schools took in $31.6 billion before fundraising dropped during the height of the financial crisis.



Topping the list was Stanford at $1.035 billion, followed by Harvard University at $650 million, Yale University at $544 million, the University of Southern California at $492 million and Columbia University at $490 million.



The top 10 fundraising colleges collected $5.3 billion, or 17 percent, of the $31 billion, even though they represent only 0.3 percent of the 3,500 accredited, nonprofit schools included in the survey.



Stanford benefited from a surge in donations at the end of its multi-year Stanford Challenge fundraising campaign, which netted $6.2 billion.



The 10-campus University of California system raised $1.56 billion, which doesn’t include money collected by its individual campuses. UC Berkeley was the leading fundraiser among all public universities, taking in $405 million.



Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford’s alumni list includes the founders of major tech companies like Yahoo Inc. who have given to the school in recent years.