UNITED STATES: Stanford is first college to raise $1 billion

Stanford University has set a new record for college fundraising, becoming the first institution to collect more than $1 billion in a single year, according to a report released last 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 US colleges and universities raised $31 billion, 2.3% more than the previous year. The record was set in 2008 when schools took in $31.6 billion, before fundraising amounts dropped at the height of the financial crisis.

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